This record will gruffly walk you home, menacing away any demons in the dusk. Because it, in its entirety, boasts a sort of demonic core. It’s wrapped in delicate slide guitar husks, but it’s still there—glowing quietly beneath an effort to be good.
Refreshing earnestness has always been one of his strengths, and Sleeper, inspired by the death of his father, is an honest study on loneliness, heartbreaking without ever becoming maudlin.
Everything here easily lives in the same universe-- 10 tracks of similarly hued songs, all of a piece. It's his most focused album, with every song's tone easily flowing into the next, and it's also one of his best.
Made after his adoptive father passed away and the subsequent estrangement from his mother, Sleeper also happens to be Segall’s most personal work, one that marks a development not just in his sound, but his psyche.
Minus the muscle, Segall's songs still manage to pack an emotional powerful punch due to a thick undercurrent of sentimentality and nostalgia.
By emphasizing his singing rather than the usual wailing walls of distortion, Segall expertly treads the fine line separating rockist classicism from lo-fi innovation.
As an artist, the mystery man of a thousand songs experiences quite the growth on Sleeper, shedding the enigma in lieu of his most honest and human recordings yet.
Sleeper‘s an album that has potential to flourish in the future after more repeated listens, rather than a clutch of instant gratification tunes.
It brings with it a deftly executed change in tone that we've only glimpsed in the past and a refreshing emotional honesty, which not only feels mature but enduring.
At times the lack of polish can be grating, but there are moments of delicacy and sensitivity that create a more rounded record than seems to exist on first listen.
The scorching riffology of ‘Twins’ and ‘Slaughterhouse’ is gone. The very retro ‘Sleeper’ is an acoustic affair, characterised by bluesy downers and portentous balladry.
Is ‘Sleeper’ a record about grief? It seems probable, but perhaps its issue is that it’s quite hard to feel anything throughout its running time beyond a sense of general malaise.
7/10
good
Fav tracks: Sleeper, The Keepers, Crazy, The Man Man, She Don't Care, Come Outside, The West
After revisiting his garage punk roots in a couple of albums he released the previous year, Segall here has moulded an album of psychedelic ballads very much anchored to his musical influences from Syd Barrett era ‘Pink Floyd, to T-Rex and Bowie. The result is a shimmering collection of evocative songs, the writing of which Segall has revealed acted as a purge on the grief of witnessing his father succumb to cancer. Easily, his most consistent album and one stripped back from his usual ... read more
A nice, chill little Psych-folk album, doesn't have his most hard hitting songwriting, but it's still a pretty engaging album to listen to overall!
A nice, chill little Psych-folk album, doesn't have his most hard hitting songwriting, but it's still a pretty engaging album to listen to overall!
Pretty solid acoustic blues psych rock thang from Ty. It’s very good—there’s not really anything I can complain about. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the album has a huge statement that makes it great—but for what it is, I like it.
*: Sweet C.C
+: Sleeper, The Keepers, The Man Man, She Don’t Care, 6th Street, The West
-: Queen Lullabye
7/10
good
Fav tracks: Sleeper, The Keepers, Crazy, The Man Man, She Don't Care, Come Outside, The West
1 | Sleeper 3:55 | |
2 | The Keepers 3:42 | |
3 | Crazy 2:28 | |
4 | The Man Man 3:17 | |
5 | She Don't Care 3:50 | |
6 | Come Outside 4:34 | |
7 | 6th Street 2:55 | |
8 | Sweet C.C. 3:36 | |
9 | Queen Lullabye 4:21 | |
10 | The West 3:16 |
#42 | / | The Fly |
#76 | / | Under the Radar |