The Big Sleep
Son Of The Tiger
French Kiss
The Big Sleep are a 3 piece band hailing from Brooklyn NY and they make a big rock noise. Sometimes it's psychedelic noise, sometimes straight up driving noise, but on the whole it means business. Son Of The Tiger opens with a musical eqivalent of a firm kick in the nuts. Brown Beauty is an instrumental sonic onslaught that holds you in its tight grasp as it steadily builds from dark and brooding to loud and heavy to louder and heavier. As you stand there, breathlessly exhausted, mouth open they hit you with a second wave with Murder. This is Electrelane after a music lesson with Wolfmother. Sonya Balchandani's vocals are sweet and subtle and are an effective contrast to the heavy riffs and crashing symbols around her.
Unfortunately, The Big Sleep are not able or willing to keep up this pace and the album takes a slight dive into no mans land as spacous, plodding stoner rock becomes the prefered method. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but after the power of the opening tracks the album seems to drift off into obscurity. Tracks like S.K.B and Menemy tend to start out fine but soon get lost in muddy cymbols and feedback and all to often lack the guitar structure of the earlier gems. However things pick up with Shima. It's jangly opening guitars are a welcome break from all the fuzzy, heavy riffs and the vocals are more audible becoming the focus that unites the song. It has more of an indie feel and builds more naturally to the familiar cymbal cacophony finale. This short break prepares you nicely for the moody title track that follows. It's a similar deal to earlier but seems to work better here and the screeching guitars and thudding rhythm really satisfy.
The Big Sleep have put together a very refreshing blend of dirty, shit kicking rock with dulcet female vocals and also seem to be in love with the entirely instrumental heavy jams of bands like The Longcut or Kinski. Put all this together and you get an album that isn't perfect but has guts and isn't afraid to grab you by the scruff of the neck and give you a darn good shaking.
Links
Official Site
MySpace
French Kiss
Tags
11th Dec 2006 - Tumblr
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