Sleepaway "Sleepaway"

Author: James Davison.

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Sleepaway are from Buffalo in New York, USA and play a kind of lush emo rock pop style of music a touch like Goo Goo Dolls, Nine Days and Vertical Horizon whilst also dipping their toes in with the likes of Acceptance, The Honorary Title & Plain White T’s.

Although the production isn’t quite as anthemic and powerful as I perhaps think it could/should be tracks like “What Are You Gonna Say When I Call You?” do have a very building sing-a-long chorus and a kind of atmospheric feel that loosely connects with Elliott’s usual soundscape vibe.

On a rather geeky note the artwork for this self-titled album by Greg Edgerton & Kyle Kraszewski is really lovely, just some nice cinematic photography portrayed in a storybook kind of way. Lovely stuff.

“Understand” has some delicately layered dual vocals that connect well together, but do Sleepaway do enough to stand out? As I’m sure you can gather as a reviewer I get a LOT of CDs to listen to, and something needs to knock your socks off as time goes on to get your engine going and if I heard Sleepaway and then a dozen other good bands in a similar style I couldn’t pick them out. That’s a real shame as the Sleepaway are in fact a good band, they just cling to the coattails of predecessors somewhat and without that x-factor they’ll just remain a good band. By all means check out this album if you like the alternative rock/melodic emo genres but don’t expect the greatest album of the past 20 years or anything.

Tracklist:

1. Nice Shoes, Hollywood!
2. Time, Traffic, And Weather
3. Best Unspoken
4. From My Bed To Yours
5. Who Needs The Radio When You’ve Got Me?
6. What Are You Gonna Say When I Call You?
7. Understand
8. If I Try
9. Something Of A Saturday
10. Sorry I Never Bought You A Car Or Took You To Vegas