The joke I'm hearing is that this band's not named after the classic Raymond Chandler crime novel but rather the soporific effect produced by the Brooklyn trio's ho-hum post-rock. That's a little mean, but I can't help feeling equally frustrated (and sleepy) when I find that, two albums into their career, the Big Sleep still haven't fully harvested the crop of mind-blowing music they take half-hearted stabs at emulating. Unlike so many other similarly knowledgable bands, the Sleep's fatal flaw isn't poor taste or a sycophantic rehashing of their influences-- they just need a shot in the arm, something to remind them of the power of rocking out.
Sleep Forever, like its predecessor Son of the Tiger, contains mostly instrumental tracks, an odd move considering that the band's most notable songs have used vocals. Riding the momentum from Tiger standout "Murder", this album's highlight "Bad Blood" follows the Pretty Girls Make Graves formula to similar success, with bassist Sonya Balchandan's vocals remaining icy despite the searing guitar riffs and chugging percussion accompanying her. Coupled with "Pinkies", a head-in-clouds dream pop song somewhere between TV on the Radio and Coldplay, these two melodic tracks constitute the crux of Sleep Forever. Excepting the impressive two-minute powder keg "Tigers in our Hearts", the rest of Sleep Forever struggles to maintain a pulse-- a desired quality only when they shoegaze. Drone instrumental "Slow Race", for example, smacks of Mogwai's "Like Herod", and the filching's worsened by a "climactic" guitar line that predictably walks down the scale. The tragically named "Chorus of Guitars" buckles even more, attempting to build a wall of sound with a flimsy piano line and languishing, scattershot vocals.
Lacking the necessary grandeur to pull off godlike post-rock, the band mines some instrumental gems when they set their sights on more nuanced numbers. The cartoonish swagger of "The Big Guns" sounds like the Octopus Project 'roid raging-- not tough enough to soundtrack an actual fight, but perfectly suitable playing in a Double Dragon stage. The latin-inspired acoustic ballad "Little Sister" represents an even bolder experiment, and while they don't quite pull it off the track succeeds as a welcome changeup. Unfortunately the Big Sleep is faced with the problem of mystifying a doomsday post-rock sound that's very familiar to fans of the genre, and it's a fight they're often not up for. Despite its slightly more diverse palette, Sleep Forever merely dabbles in more styles rather than explores them, and as soon as their creative finger slips off the pleasure button, it's hard to resist from dozing.
