Big Sleep Sleep Forever

The Big Sleep will probably be slept upon forever, despite the relative majesty of albums like Sleep Forever, their second on French Kiss after Son of the Tiger in 2006.  It kind of pains me to review albums that are merely, you know, rock records, but The Big Sleep deserve it, and occasionally a release wears down my defenses by avoiding precious guitar polemics and focusing on just, you know, rocking.  The band reminds me of Calla, being an attractive 3 piece based in NYC that somehow avoids the filthy lucre of magazine jizm by ignoring trends and focusing on their own textural, clean, quiet/noise-y muse.

The thing is, I'm not supposed to be the dude reviewing this.  I should be working on a feature about how unsigned Southeast Virginia hip-hop has developed an infatuation with French House, and how this is a street level shadow to the unspoken Paris-Virginia Beach interplay of Daft Punk and the Neptunes that Kanye recently nicked (that is, after all, his genius, as he is currently touring with N.E.R.D. on a stage designed by the wizards who built Daft Punk's pyramid).  Given my laziness, I probably won't write this feature, and somebody else will do it a few years from now leaving me to meekly claim I was there.  This is a lengthy digression that I should abandon, but it illustrates the point that I'd rather talk about grimy neon dance and rap than give shine to, sigh, a guitar slinging rock act.

Nobody else is doing it, though, so here goes:  The Big Sleep are among the most enjoyable and admirable NYC rockers around.  They are pretty people who would probably soak up a lot more digital ink if they focused on publicity or gimmicks, but they focus hard on their music, and it shows in the results.  Vocals, not obscured to shoegaze extents, are used only occasionally as a piece of the fabric, though Sonya Balchandani and Danny Barria are adept at both weary, quiet resignation and weary, loud heroism on the mic.  The duo trade off instrumentally alternating and meshing delicate keyboards and sparse guitar with expert shredding and hypnotic keyboard drones.  Drummer Gabe Rhodes can keep a mean metronome or wail to heights of Keith Moon insanity, but he knows when to stay silent.  The Big Sleep is a rare alchemy of three people who could be virtuosos but have a tasteful, effective restraint that belies their youth.

Track by track, Sleep Forever is a can't miss proposition, particularly on killers like the rollicking Bad Blood or the epic title track.  The only problem (and I don't even know if its a problem) is that every track registers as an epic of some sort, so much so that the album itself registers as a pleasurable, cathartic blur rather than a cohesive statement itself.  One probably won't remember every track even if they remember being moved by it.  The album may be a dead format that types that would visit this site, myself included, nostalgically cling to, but that's what I'm reviewing.  If you're listening to one track and imagining the possibilities, go ahead and bump that rating up one or two.  Same goes if you're predisposed to finely crafted rock.  Could The Big Sleep be the first primarily instrumental guitar junkies to register best as a singles act?  I don't know, but they're amazing live.