The Sleeping Years

Another week has passed and it’s the last day of August…shit where has my summer gone. Week 5 out Week 10 until I should be cleared to play sports again…

School starts on Wednesday and look for the website to go into some sort of limbo, I’m terrible at time managing. Without further ado here are the week’s posts and whatever else is going on around the blogosphere.

Welcome our 3 new writers, Matt, Coko and Lu.

Stereolab – Chemical Chords by Matt- put this on my list of albums to check out
The Virgins – Coko questions their band name, from band pictures it looks like more of truthful confession
Endeverater – Kiss or Kill by Lu

Reviews:
Broadfield Marchers – The Invitable Continuing
London Zoo by The Bug – I gave it a 5/5 (am I giving out too many?), it is really is worthy of its critical acclaim
The Faint – Fasciinatiion – What’s with the I’s?
Island’s Arm Way
Mothlite – The Flax of Reverie – hopefully we can get an interview going Jess
The Sleeping Years – We’re Becoming Islands One by One

Other:
Cutting Edge Music Fest Pt. 2
Hamlet 2 Review and Mini-Playlist – save your $$
Tropic Thunder Playlist and Review – Hilarious but offensive movie. I’m shameless when it comes to these playlists.
Joe reviews The Final Riot tour with headliners, Paramore.
The Microsoft Zune is Gangsta – Screw The Ipod – srsly
Ghalib reviews the Woodhands and Lioness show he saw last weekend.

News around the internet:
F Yeah Fest guys got beat up by Radiohead security with the cops watching. They recorded security beating up a patron excessively and security ran and beat them up for it.

The man behind AntiQuiet (or one of the writers) had his house stormed by FBI and he was formerly charged for posting tracks of Chinese Democracy. Chinese Democracy is the long awaited Guns n’ Roses album that has cost a reported 10 million or so. He faces a LONG prison sentence, releasing copyrighted work before it’s formerly released is really the problem. He did have it coming, especially living in the states. Slash isn’t rooting for him.

Some good discussion at the Elbo.ws forum. Way to hold us bloggers to standards Under the Dog.

Pitchfork ended the hype of Bloc Party’s Intimacy with a predicted 5.0-something score.

The Sleeping Years Were Becoming Islands One by One

The Sleeping Years are an acoustic/folk group out of London, England. They are a 4 person group who play a host of instruments with Michelle So playing cello rather then traditional bass and leadsinger (or owner of the project, I just assumed his band was part of it) Dale Grundle lending his hand to guitar, bass, piano, harmonica and ebow.

I really felt compelled to check out We’re Becoming Islands One by One with the song You And Me Against The World. I wasn’t sure about the song title, thinking I’ve seen many titles like that but really the song is so incredibly beautiful with the opening:

“From the harbour hill to where the crescent curls, the black water swell, the turning of the world. Strung lights and drunken sounds glimmer at the edges of your town. We were hiding for so long with everyone else all trying to hold on but that time has gone now”

Absolutely brilliantly song writer that really creates a dreamy/gloomy atmosphere all at the same time. The musicianship? Even better. There’s just so much going on even if the songs remain somewhat somber or too quiet. There’s an intricate arrangement especially with the amount of instruments that Grundle is able to play.

It’s easy to compare this to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago due to the atmosphere in which that album was created but this album is just better on a fundamental level. Other then the backstory to Bon Iver’s recording there’s much more left to be desired on the production and musical level in comparison.

At one point though I did find both albums to have that “bland” feeling. It’s more about the style more then anything. I try not to ask music to be not what it is but let it be what it is since it’s art isn’t it?

The album is good, maybe not great in my book due to style but really they would only be more popular if someone like Pitchfork reviewed them. It’s unfortunate that the internet is decided like that.

Rating: 4 out of 5
The real problem I guess is that the Sleeping Years/Dale Grundle don’t really come out of their shell and seem to stay within themselves. He’s amazingly talented though so while he can probably do a lot better, We’re Becoming Islands One by One is still very good. A perfect album to go to sleep to, they live up to their band name.

Setting Fire To Sleeping Towns by The Sleeping Years

You And Me Against The World by The Sleeping Years