Monday, July 19, 2010

Demo-lition Derby: Satellite Sleep

Satellite Sleep
Demo
I have been obsessively listening to this for weeks. Need I say more?
Satellite Sleep’s three song demo pornographically tingles the same cerebral nodules that make me excited for Christopher Nolan’s Inception. It’s a twisty bit of emotionally draining crusty punk transcendence that serves damning notice to all the lesser punk bands out there content to lazily Xerox hardcore clichés that they’re about to get lapped.
Through three songs of deliberately paced crust in the vein of Trap Them, completely with desperately howled vocals and the claustrophobic atmosphere of Amebix or Damad, Satellite Sleep reminded this cynical fuck of why he loved punk so much as wee laddie.
The watery, somnambulistic production on the demo gives Satellite Sleep a hypnagogic vibe that’s wonderfully surreal and stunningly evocative. “Empty” rings out from the precipice of some emotionally devastating abyss as the guitars and cymbals crash through a barren musical wasteland. The naked anguish and emotional violence of “Cold Womb” builds to a blastbeaten catharsis and a wasted, spent and, moreover, inevitable entropic breakdown in an emotionally taxing 4:43. Bringing up the rear, the band’s eponymous final track clangs with a resigned air, raging against a cage the band seems intent on refusing to even acknowledge, drillbit bass hacking at the lock in a display of willful, impotent defiance.
Download. Now. And bother every label person you know until somebody signs these kids.

6 comments:

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

A diamond in the rough, for sure. Downloaded it last night and spun it a few times.

I can't wait to see what these guys can get up to with a little backup!

Andrew Childers said...

i wouldn't want to see this diamond too un-roughed up, though. the most wonderful part for me was that incredible watery production sound to it. i find it absolutely captivating.
but yes, the band told me they're working on new material, so hopefully we'll hear more from them soon and i'll definitely post it lickity split when that happens.

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

Oh yeah, I don't want them to get all polished and clean-sounding.

I just would like to hear what they could do with the means to make an entire album all at once.

Autonocuous said...

The howls, the fuzz, the sense of despair! The self-titled track would be a fitting soundtrack to Roskolnikov murdering the pawnbroker and her sister.

Thanks for this

Andrew Childers said...

+1 for the dostoevsky. i'm a sucker for that too. take an extra internet out of petty cash.

Autonocuous said...

What is man without desires, without free will, without grind blogs, and without the power of choice but a fray in an ethernet cable?

I'm sure it was just name of the blog that registered at the same moment with the song. The complete anguish you hear in the music gave me a similar feeling as reading that for the first time. You know what I mean? Your heart is in your throat and you have to lean forward a bit.

+1000 for a fucking fantastic blog