By Emma Cohen of Indie Band Guru
Coming from none other then Orlando, Florida, very close to my own hometown, Sleeping With Sirens is a five member band that constantly manages to find a bridge between pop and rock that is hard to perfect. The group has produced four full albums not including individual song releases.
While they normally boast a strong, engineered electric sound ranging from powerful basses and guitar, their most recent album is different — Sleeping With Sirens’ new release, Live and Unplugged, only contains acoustic versions of their music, plus a few covers, performed live. Each of the 11tracks are presented so naked and bare that it is impossible to ignore the group’s raw talent.
Sleeping With Sirens Strips Down, Bears All
One of the most notable songs from this new album, “Gold” is so upbeat and action packed that, for a moment, it didn’t appear to be acoustic.The song starts with a quick moving guitar to grab the listener’s attention and then utilizes the tried-and-true hand clap to get the whole melody going. The high pitched male vocals took me back to a time of fun boy bands and singing loudly in the car, while the talented instrumentals reminded me that the group is so much more. To add on to this, the lyrics were simple enough that it wasn’t to difficult to understand their message.
My personal favorite song was “Free Now” — the raw emotion and broken feel of the overall song really touched me. Not to mention how slow it started and how the vocalist really had an opportunity to shine, as an individual with their own pain, rather then just another member of a band. At the same time, “Free Now” allowed the group as a whole to reach a new audience and level of accomplishment — such a heartfelt song can be hard to pull off. Listening to the soft harmonies and light drumming was oddly calming, like rain on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Live and Unplugged is, without a doubt, my favorite album from Sleeping With Sirens yet. The availability of talent and use of all the members gifts made it personal.
