From their formation in 2006 to continuously growing on their timeless brand of Metalcore in 2024, British band While She Sleeps have yet to run out of fuel for their fire. Now three EPs and six albums deep into their career, their new record Self Hell (Spinefarm Records) makes it clear the group is still just getting started.
Kicking off with the thrilling belts and marching drums of the intro track “Peace Of Mind”, While She Sleeps wastes no time in capturing the array of emotions that the album’s title suggests. However, the menacing “Leave Me Alone” is where the madness truly begins. The song is three and a half straight minutes of anticipation brewing, giving a threatening taste of what is to come. Its dynamic shifts between looming rap metal, intense electronics, and a rip-roaring breakdown will leave you hungry for more without spoiling too much too soon.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a While She Sleeps album without some of Sean Long’s face-melting astral shreds sprinkled in. The guitarist’s method of utilizing pitch-shifting effects to accentuate his already expressive riffs brings another level of distinctiveness to the band’s sound. With each album, it has become more and more of a defining aspect of their identity without losing any of its “wow” factor. Whether it is shining in its full glory in the wailing solos of “Rainbows” and “Dopesick”, or beaming from the background in the title track and “Enemy Mentality”, it always serves its purpose in multiplying the epicness tenfold.
The emotional “To The Flowers” tells a vivid story through its five-minute run, dropping from light celestial riffage into a wall of sound evocative of mourning guitars. Vocalist Lawrence “Loz” Taylor sings in a tenderhearted tone about love and death, delivering lines like “I wish for the start while I pray for the end, let’s take it all for granted, I know nothing’s gonna change at all.” Yet another shimmering solo radiates through the repeated lines, just before a dramatic drop in tempo takes over to wrap up the tear-jerking track.
While the album would do just fine without them, the interlude tracks tie together the different chapters of the story beautifully. The dark ambient “No Feeling Is Final” features electronic artist Aether, and provides an eerily satisfying segue into the record’s second half. The primarily electronic “Out Of The Blue” sounds like the climax of a vintage video game, building up a peculiar sense of suspense before the final two tracks.
The acoustic “Radical Hatred Radical Love” closes the album with a stripped-down moving performance. Distant screams underline each harmony while a delicate piano and harrowing violin pile up over the ending vocal layers for a soul-stirring finish.
With Self Hell, While She Sleeps prove that after almost two decades, they still know how to grow and expand their songwriting without losing what made them special in the first place. This is the sound of a band that has been reborn into a new higher form, and is ready to take on the rest of its long career.
Buy the album here:
https://whileshesleeps.lnk.to/SELFHELL
9 / 10
COLLEEN KANOWSKY