Review Summary: This one’s for the pigs at the top.
Last year, Trap Them released their fourth album “Bliss***er”. I remember anxiously awaiting its release, as we tend to do with bands we love. I listened to the first single “Salted Crypts,” and was relieved. It was basically what I wanted and essentially what I expected, after their last album “Darker Handcraft” blew me away. But then the album itself came out. After a few listens, the magnitude of its shortcomings dawned on me. This album was awful. It was lazy, uninspired, meandering, and quite frankly, seemed as if it was released for the sake of having a new release. It’s a crushing blow: Something you love and revere is gone, and most of the time, to never be as good again. When bands I know to be talented and capable expect us to accept something so aggressively sub par, I take it personally. I lose respect for them, yes. But more than that, I lose faith.
What evokes even stronger emotions though, is when a band gets it right. And not “right” like Dillinger with Option Paralysis or Cancer Bats with Hail Destroyer, but right – when you know an album is going to stick with you for years if not decades. With a lot of bands, that happens on the first album: GNR, Pearl Jam, Zeppelin, and Kvelertak are a few such bands that come to mind. While She Sleeps is definitely on this list as well. This Is The Six was astonishing. What made it particularly impressive was that it followed up the EP The North Stands For Nothing, which honestly was nothing to write home about. That was more in line with cliché chugga chugga metalcore like BMTH and Architects, and resulted in the media lumping in WSS with that scene. But anyone who’s given them even one listen knows just how misrepresented they are by such assessments. On This Is The Six, WSS displayed a level of songwriting prowess and emotional delivery that the aforementioned bands will never achieve. They’ll never even get close. But with Brainwashed, Sleeps make lightning strike twice.
The singles that came out last year - New World Torture and Four Walls - were both exceptional. If anything, the quality of those two songs worried me because there was no way an entire album could be filled with songs this good. They were so heavy and anthemic, and kept me coming back even after dozens of listens. I prepared to be somewhat let down by the rest of the songs as I assumed they had led with the best pair. Never have I been so happy to be proven wrong. Brainwashed, Torment, and No Sides No Enemies beat anything from This Is The Six, which frankly, is an absurd feat. The band understandably took a “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to the production. Colin Richardson and Carl Bown are back again to produce and mix, and the result is a sonic character that’s just about identical to the last album. In other words, it sounds fantastic.
The songwriting itself is plainly improved; buildups and breakdowns of songs like Brainwashed and Modern Minds are impeccably crafted. The songs sound more mature and fleshed out this time around. Loz Taylor and Mat Welsh have voices that complement each other’s rather well, and their vocal trade offs highlight this frequently. Welsh, along with lead guitarist Sean Long, have stuffed this album with a perfectly contrasted split of headbang inciting and emotionally raw riffs, fills, and solos. Some that immediately come to mind are the pummeling main riffs in New World Torture, Four Walls, and Torment, and the poignance of those peppered throughout Life In Tension, No Sides No Enemies, and Modern Minds. On the first album, they realized the power of gang vocals and how effectively they could help elevate a song. This time around, they utilize them even more which is surprising, given how prevalent they were last time. All 11 songs feature them prominently, and earn their usage. The interludes - tracks 1, 5, 9, and 13 on the deluxe version - all fit well in the context of what the album is going for, but about half the time, I’ll skip over them. Don't get me wrong, I like them; it’s just that sometimes, I’d rather just hear the songs themselves.
I adore this album, but if I had to nitpick, it’d be over the songs Trophies of Violence and Method In Madness. To be clear, these two songs show Sleeps at their worst, which is still miles better than their contemporaries at their very best. With Trophies, my only annoyance is the fact that there’s no pay off after the buildup. With Method, the main riff seems a little… boring? I can’t really pinpoint it, but it just sounds off somehow. And the end is weird, because it sort of ends without an actual ending, if that makes sense. But again, these are good songs, just not as incredible as the rest.
This is one of those albums that makes you take a step back and look at the musical landscape. It makes you wonder how so many bands can have such large fanbases with such terrible products. It makes so many larger, established acts look plain bad. WSS is unencumbered by mainstream pressure, corporate influence, and bloated egos, unlike numerous contemporaries. They just write and play from the soul. In a sea of bland, half hearted nonsense, it’s bands and albums like this that remind us why we love music in the first place - because it makes us feel something.
This one’s for the pigs at the top.
