SLEEPING AT LAST- Storyboards

This is so easy to fall in love with. There’s the raw talent, it takes just two minutes to work out that the three members of Chicago’s Sleeping At Last have got some serious chops. There’s the lyric sheet, with lines like “when we awake, we are left with the eggshells inside of the nest and the promise that one day soon, it will come back to us” that could have come from a poetry book. There’s some real pedigree here as well, contributors have also worked with Paul McCartney and Death Cab For Cutie, Van Dyke Parks (whose resume includes time with U2, The Beach Boys and Walt Disney) arranged the strings, and the whole shebang was recorded at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studio. And then there’s the music all those skills combine to create- ‘Side By Side’, which sounds like Coldplay but modest and captivating too, the sombre but sunny layers of ‘Unmade’, and the fragile, tender ‘Naïve’, one of the most delicately beautiful tunes of the year. Of ever, really. Listen to this album immediately then, fall in love, but don’t blame us if it leads to an affair that lasts the rest of your life.