Band: For All Those Sleeping
Title: s/t
Label: N/A
Release Date: 2009
Review By: Scott L
Tracklisting:
- Janice, It Ain’t Funny
- I’m Not Dead Yet
Ever since I watched the movie The Jungle Book as a kid I’ve understood that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However, I also believe that there are certain instances when monkey see, monkey do just ends up reeking of unoriginality. And while I enjoyed the 2 songs on this micro-EP, and my opening may be a bit harsher sounding than I intend, whether you own this particular EP or not… you’ve heard it all before. Over and over and over again.
For All Those Sleeping is a 5-piece out of St. Cloud, Minnesota that joins a long line of screamo acts in rehashing a sound that has long since lost much of its luster due to major over saturation of the market. With a sound along the lines of We Came As Romans, The Word Alive, Write This Down, The Bright Star Alliance, Motionless In White, Oh The Blood, Gray Lines Of Perfection, Upon Beauty Rests, Addison… oops, sorry about that… lost it there for a second. Anyway, yeah… they’re screamo. Don’t get me wrong, these guys are talented… and the two tracks on this EP are well-crafted, there’s just nothing that sets the bar any higher or gives you any compelling reason to shell out your hard-earned cash when you’ve no doubt got plenty of sound-alike bands already clocking time in your iPod. And maybe a full-length release would pull a little harder on the wallet… who knows. And I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind hearing more from these guys. They’ve got the chops, they just seem to sell themselves short.
Lyrics were pretty standard. As the track names imply, there wasn’t anything overly spiritual… or spiritual at all, actually. Consider the song “I’m Not Dead Yet” which says, “slow down my chest can’t keep up / with the rate that you’re moving / now we’re moving / deeper and deeper / now we’re falling / faster and faster / there’s nothing left / please wake me / because this surely can’t be happening / but the touch is so real / your eyes spark so clearly / I heard every word you said / your words are so deadly / but I’m not dead yet”. Looking at the lyrics to these two songs, and also the songs from For All Those Sleeping’s previous EP, lyrically they tend to be pretty dark. And while I realize that we do live in a dark world, I’m still hesitant to recommend a steady diet of songs about “such lovely graves” or telling someone to “bleed, like you mean it. Granted, I may be taking some of the words out of context, but I believe that bands do their listeners a great disservice when they offer commentary on the dark side of life without giving a glimpse of the hope available as well… particularly if that band professes to be believers.
The packaging that I received for the review may not be the product that goes out to the consumer. I got a pressed CD in a white paper slipcase. And I’m not complaining about that by any means. And for a two-song EP from an unsigned band, let me say, I’ve gotten worse… but that’s neither here nor there. Packaging may be a wash, and even an incentive to buy the digital download, but know that the actual production values on the EP were top notch. The sound is crisp and clear and the mix was dead on.
The standout track was a toss up… literally. Since there were only two songs on this CD, it was either or to start with and both of the tracks were pretty equal in likeability. I’d probably lean towards “Janice, It Ain’t Funny” just because it was a little catchier and the track name stands out more.
Overall: If they could twist their sound and really make it their own, For All Those Sleeping could turn some heads. And for the record, I’m not talking about redefining the genre… just turning down the bland-o on the creativity side of things. Because as it stands, it’s pretty much life at the end of a long line of bands with the same sound that happened to get there first.
www.myspace.com/forallthosesleeping