With My Own Dead Love, the Milwaukee, WI-based outfit Sleepersound has just self-released their third full length album, a nine-song set that’s available on translucent green vinyl and digital. The music deftly encompasses elements of post-rock, shoegaze, indie rock, slow-core, dream-pop, and even a few touches of prog along the way. As on their previous efforts, Sleepersound can roll for significant stretches as a fully developed instrumental combo sans vocals, but when the singing does come in, the addition never connects as tacked on, instead adding an extra dimension to an already robust whole.
For this new LP, Sleepersound consist of guitarist-vocalist-keyboardists Dave D’Antonio and Kenny Buesing, bassist-keyboardist Mike Campise, and drummer Dan Niedziejko. So it has been since the beginning, with In Medias Res the band’s 2018 debut and Idle Voices its 2021 follow-up. From 2019–2021 Stephen Vincent Anderson provided a visual component, consisting of original and found footage, to the band’s live performances. Buesing exited the band in 2024, but not before the completion of My Own Dead Love.
On the post-rock side of the spectrum, Sleepersound have on more than one occasion been compared to Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and that’s a fair assessment to make, but it’s also important to pinpoint a lack of severity in their approach, and this is where the dream-pop and shoegaze sensibilities impact the sound and give their records a subtle Anglo feel, like they could’ve been signed to 4AD during that label’s heyday, or for that matter, right now.
For those hearing Sleepersound for the first time with My Own Dead Love, opener “Let’s Play Wolves” could give an initial false impression as it radiates moody indie folk vibes with mild inflections of Radiohead. But then “Tread Down” kicks the record into full-band gear, with chiming guitars, sturdy drumming and soaring vocals. There’s an atmospheric mid-section and then a slow build back up to full energy. It’s the kind of number that’ll go over huge during a live set.
“Certain Beasts” slows the pace and ups the dream-gaze atmospherics but with a substantial rhythmic bedrock that provides a connective bridge into “Ni Siquiera Tu,” which has an almost ’80s indie pop feel with dabs of neo-psych. And it’s here that it can be ascertained how Sleepersound often engage with vocals as just another instrument in the mix.
And then right on time, “Embers” features lead singing that’s appropriate for a pop single. The gorgeousness of the instrumental gush in the back half suggests the song could be exactly that. “Falling Dream” is another crisp mover, which in context means it isn’t heading anywhere all that fast, as there’s a slow-core element to Sleepersound that remains undercurrent, never becoming fully overt.
However, post-rock again rises to the fore in the Mogwai-ish “Soma,” though there’s some plucking around that validates the stated African influences (specifically Tinariwen and Mdou Moctar) but also brings the contemporary Philadelphia band Basic to mind, and that’s a fine twist. “The Flesh” opens with chilly new wavy keyboards before making another big (albeit concise) Radiohead-like splash, and then “Living Ancestor” rolls in and delivers something of a microcosm of the band’s whole bag for the album’s close. My Own Dead Love finds Sleepersound in strong form as they slim down to a trio.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
