I once heard Sleepersound described as “The True Midwest Shoegaze Experience”, and while that is particularly apt, it only tells half the story. The band are about so much more and pull prog, experimental rock and emo into their sphere, before making them malleable and reforming them in their own image. It is always a delight to hear a band bringing freshness to familiar themes, and that’s precisely where their latest long player, My Own Dead Love, steps in. Featuring nine tracks that are woven like a rich tapestry, this album should garner the band some global attention.

With an acoustic guitar motif threaded with waiflike vocals, there’s something very dreamy about opening track ‘Let’s Play Wolves’. It’s a piece of music that perfectly captures that magical moment between wake and sleep, it is when the world slowly comes into focus and the ethereal nature of dreams is replaced by the weight of reality, and that reality arrives in the shape of the following ‘Tread Down’ where the airy guitar and vocals are replaced by weighty drums and bass. It’s quite a sonic shift and one that will shake the listener from their reverie like a splash of cold water on the face. Despite these startling shifts, My Own Dead Love flows like an old school album and should be treated as such. Whilst it is perfectly feasible to dip in and out and experience each track individually, it is best consumed in one sitting to fully appreciate its ebb and flow as it lifts us on soaring guitars one moment then drops us betwixt cavernous drums the next.

Vocals are an anathema in the world of post-rock, they can turn off as many people as they switch on. However, they work in Sleepersound because they are neither unobtrusive nor prominent, they simply become another instrument to add colour to their palette. There’s an elasticity to Dave D’Antonio’s vocals, a pliant quality, that makes them like actual notes, rather than merely words, and they entwine the instrumentation like needle through thread. Dave also plays guitar and keyboards, and along with bassist (and keyboardist) Mike Camp and drummer Dan Niedziejko make up the core of the group and they’ve been together pretty much since the group’s inception (other long-term member Kenny Buesing left shortly after the songs were finalised) and with that comes an easy chemistry that suggests no matter what risks they might take, they are sure to work. Case in point being epic closer ‘Living Ancestor’, a haunting piece of music that employs jarring tonality, yet the band play with such confidence that it flows seamlessly.

Aside from the band’s obvious influences (Mogwai, Radiohead) they also draw deep from the well of African artists such as Tinarwin and Mdou Moctar, and you can definitely hear that in the time signatures and poly hythms employed. Yet they are worldly in the truest sense of the world and like musical magpies take inspiration from wherever they find it and are sure to do for post-rock what Dave Burbeck did for jazz. My Own Dead Love finds Sleepersound tackling that “difficult third album” with apparent ease and it with a touch of sadness that ‘Living Ancestor’ fades into the ether, yet it also suggests there’s much more to come from this crew.

• My Own Dead Love is released on 14th March 2025 (available here).
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Track List:

1. Let’s Play Wolves
2. Tread Down
3. Certain Beasts
4. Ni Siquiera Tu
5. Embers
6. Falling Dream
7. Soma
8. The Flesh
9. Living Ancestor