WHILE SHE SLEEPS
Self Hell
Sheffield’s slow-burn metalcore stars reinvigorate rather than revolutionise
While She Sleeps have been waiting in the wings for true A-list status
SLEEPS BROTHERS
IF TIMING TRULY is everything, then While She Sleeps could be forgiven for feeling hard done by. Their ascension through British metalcore’s ranks since their 2006 inception has been one of slow and incremental gains, from the country’s spit’n’sawdust village halls all the way, in 2023, to London’s Alexandra Palace.
That it’s come in a golden age of British metalcore, however, has always left a feeling that Sleeps were forever playing bridesmaid to their friends in the indomitable Bring Me The Horizon and Architects. Little wonder that it has left frontman Loz Taylor talking up feelings of imposter syndrome within their ranks.
The build-up to Self Hell, the quintet’s sixth full-length, has also seen the frontman and his comrades keen to announce the experimentation and progression to be found in its 12 tracks. This perhaps further hints at the feeling of breath on the back of their necks, the genre’s young innovators such as Bad Omens and Spiritbox not so much creeping up in the rearview mirror as ripping up the road entirely. ‘Adapt or die’ would be too strong a sentiment for a band that continues to take forward, if not sometimes circuitous, strides, but While She Sleeps won’t be alone in feeling the sense of ‘adapt to thrive’ in the current heavy music landscape.