Album review: Sleep Theory – Afterglow

There’s been endless talk about making metal accessible this last few years. Heavy hitters Beartooth and Bring Me The Horizon have roared to global domination, layering lashings of pop melody and mainstream sheen onto steely core sounds. Sleep Token’s unprecedented success has come from a counterbalance of R&B warbling with hard-edged djent.

Sleep Theory are an invigoratingly organic alternative, grown untidily from the ground up. Wielding comparable constituent parts to those in the hands of Vessel and the boys, it’s actually quite remarkable quite how meaningfully different Afterglow feels.

Mainman Cullen Moore grew up with rhythm & blues and soul, but rather than bolstering old sounds with parts learned from Deftones or Meshuggah, he weaves them into songs clearly born from adoration for countless less trendy teenage heroes like Fall Out Boy, Woe, Is Me, Saosin and Dance Gavin Dance. The springy nu-metal riffs and juddering synths of Fallout, for instance, could hold its own alongside the mighty Linkin Park. Numb pays off waves of angst with bloody-knuckled conviction. Stuck In My Head is patently the work of a songwriter who grew up listening to Bobby Brown and Michael Jackson, but even Reddit would be hard pushed to argue that it doesn’t really rock.

Authenticity come at the expense of originality, of course. Working deeper into a meaty 12-song tracklist, the debts owed to Sleep Theory’s forbears become increasingly apparent. But this is hardly a dealbreaker when bangers like Parasite, Just A Mistake and Paralysed just keep racking up. And although the orchestral synths and waltzing melodrama of last track Words Are Worthless very nearly tips over into self-indulgence, its cathartic outpouring is hard earned.

Because, ultimately, Afterglow is the sound of adolescent dreams come to life. Bask in its incandescent heat and light.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Bring Me The Horizon, Beartooth, Sleep Token

Afterglow is out now via Epitaph. Get your exclusive Kerrang! x Sleep Theory T-shirt now.

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