Album Review: Sleeping With Sirens – Feel

Sleeping With Sirens seem to have it all. Heart-on-sleeve lyrics over imminent percussion and low end, saturated guitars, an excess of 260,000 records sold to date, an effeminate-sounding frontman with equally effeminate hair and a slew of Internet fan pages exalting said hair. But the Orlando five-piece have taken a new path on their latest record Feel and while it could be a much-needed palate cleanser for the band, fans looking for the dizzy crushing in If You Can’t Hang or the reserved textures of Roger Rabbit should check all expectations at the door.

Things kick off with just over four-and-a-half minutes of vindication, cushioned with an unbridled pandering to accessible pop. The title track is a tribute to Quinn’s forced maturity after the birth of his daughter in May last year, and his marriage earlier this year. His declarations permeate through the foppish wailing that once fellated our eardrums, now it’s as if it’s spent time with a focus group and been spat out the shiny end of the industry cogs. Elsewhere,Congratulations (featuring Matty Mullins of Memphis May Fire) starts with a wince-worthy voicemail recording, the memory filters into the seamless two-part harmony, smudging it with naff – not even the throwback guitar solo at 3:20 can salvage the track.

Assisted again by producer Cameron Mizell – who helmed previous LP Let’s Cheers To This – it’s clear the band have refined their sound to boast changes of pace and genre dabbling. In first single Alone the band make the questionable decision to enlist rapper Machine Gun Kelly. Given, Quinn has tried his hand at rap before, albeit off the cuff and live, but lyrically it’s the most lackluster on the record. The formulaic arrangement over Quinn’s repetitive chorus reads lazy when considering their back catalogue; in fact, MGK’s contribution shows the teeth Quinn couldn’t. Ironically, the collaboration will send MGK zealots into trolling diatribes for the association just as much at does to fans of SWS.

Sleeping With Sirens’ audience are used to genre experimentalism and prescient lyric bleeds; the band are capable of so much more than this ragbag of singles and safe arrangements.