Wintersleep - New Interiors

I found Wintersleep in the strangest of fashions, having seen their album in HMV, I immediately downloaded "Welcome To The Night Sky" on the strength of its artwork alone and upon hearing "Dead Letter & The Infinite Yes" and "Astronaut", I immediately set upon buying the album and it continuously grew on me becoming one of my more favoured albums, not just of recent times, but of all time. Now being a rather big fan of the Canadian band, it was always going to be a huge task for them and their follow up "New Interiors".

"New Interiors" is an entirely new beast to "Welcome To The Night Sky", while "Welcome To The Night Sky" seemed intent on grabbing you in with honest and relateable abstract lyrics that stuck with you long after the album had finished, "New Interiors" seems more inclined on catchy poppy hooks and repeated chorus vocals in an attempt to gain access to a more mainstream audience and to some extent it does actually work. "Encyclopedia" has a dirty grittiness that seems to nod its head towards Queen Of The Stone Age before it folds back sounding more like a mix of Interpol and REM with Samuel repeatedly singing 'You're alive, but what's it worth'. Other standout tracks include "Blood Collection", a slow, brooding and haunting tune and also "Black Camera" which is an upbeat and rousing number complete with 'ahhhhh' backing melodies, which always helps to improve a song in my book.

The problem that "New Interiors" has is that, despite "Welcome To The Night Sky" sounding alike REM, it still had a sense of urgency and it had a huge feel of uniqueness within it, which is something I admired. "New Interiors" has reigned this in somewhat for a more polished and commerical feel, to an extent it feels like they are marketing themselves for a mainstream American rock chart and while it is still on the whole a good album, it trails off unsuccessfully midway through and you find yourself listening to it and checking what song number you have got to and how many more songs there are to go. "New Interiors" though, will still become one of my more favoured albums of this year, such is the price of a horrifically bad time for good albums in the industry, so please buy this album so Wintersleep get another stab at it.

3 / 5

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