September Album Recommendation: Sleep On It's Pride & Disaster
This past month has been incredible for music, from the Hella Mega tour announcement to new albums from so many of my favorite artists. Typically, I try to recommend albums that have been out for a while. That way, I have time to really form an opinion on them and watch my relationship to the music evolve, but I couldn't help myself this time.
Released on September 13th, Pride & Disaster, the second LP from Chicago band Sleep On It, needs to be discussed and it needs to be discussed now. This textbook pop punk album is special, not necessarily through the sounds it utilizes, but the emotionality and specific feelings it emits.
No one tells you that after college, once you're fully immersed in the "real" world, you'll spend a lot of time chasing people and places that have already come and gone in your life. Home doesn't mean the same thing it did when you were in high school, and you're left to spend your 20's searching for it again. You're left searching for yourself.
Pride & Disaster manages to blend this bitterness, this nostalgia, this hopelessness and hopefulness together on its ten tracks, letting the listener walk away a little better off than before. At least, that's what happens for me.
"Racing Towards a Red Light":
The title of this track alone was enough to get me on board, and it does a nice job of setting up the themes of the album. There is something so provocative about rushing and worrying and stressing, just to come to a standstill and wait. All of college felt this way, trying to barrel through to the future, but now that I'm here, I'm left asking myself, "Is this all there is?"
As for the music itself, it comes in quick with the drums and chugging guitars, staples of the genre, and we're immediately invited on this journey with the narrator. I'm going to say it a thousand times, but lead singer Zech Pluister is the voice of this new wave of pop punk. He is genre defining, much in the way Patrick Stump, Brendon Urie, etcetera, etcetera were and are.
As you all know by now, I'm a sucker for references and reprises. Lyrically, the chorus callbacks to a track from their first LP, titled, "Autumn (I Wish I Was Better)," with the backing vocals telling us the speaker and his friends are "Not better yet / We're not better." The chorus ends with "I'm in disbelief / There's a long road ahead of me," which is our narrator inviting us on this long road with him. The song functions as a nice introduction to the story and Sleep On It's new, more evolved sound.
"Hold Your Breath":
The first single on the album, this track is all about living in the moment. It's an extension of the themes we were introduced to in the previous track, the speaker telling us to "Just let go / You'll never get these chances again." He also asks us to move on from the past, and "only eyes open wide / Will ever get the chance to see who I am / And who I'm gonna be."
Musically, the hook is catchy and easy to sing along to. There's no questioning why this is a single. Reminiscent of earlier pop punk, two alternating vocalists are really highlighted here. As much as this album is a love letter to childhood and "better" days, it's a love letter to the scene of the 2000's and the music that shaped Sleep On It.
"Babe Ruth":
This song continues with themes of youthfulness and nostalgia, but it does so in such an interesting way. The verse kicks off with, "We're the sound of a broken record / Repeating words and forgotten lines." We're three songs in and the speaker is essentially calling himself out for being hung up on the past. So often I've found myself caught up on something that happened and prefacing a conversation by saying I'm over it, but the act of talking about it at all proves that I'm not. This is an acknowledgement of that exact scenario.
Also, this track is important because it's one of the first times our speaker voices his fear of letting people down. "I don't know where I've been or who I'm letting down / We can try to get past / All the things that we lack / And find a place to hide til the sun comes out," he says. As the story progresses, he voices this concern over and over again. This anxiety about not knowing himself well enough for the people he loves to rely on him is a struggle I think all people in their 20's can resonate with. At this age, you have to be something to everyone, all the while, not knowing who you are at the end of the day.
(In case you haven't noticed by now, these themes are really speaking to me, a 20-year-old recent college graduate.)
"Under the Moment":
This is a cry for help. Literally. Our speaker says, "The room is on fire and I'm filled with doubt / I'm begging, I'm pleading, could you help me out?" The pressure is getting to him, with the weight of the past dragging him down and this inability to return to simpler times. Your 20's, especially early 20's, feel hopeless and dark and scary, but this track aims to show that asking for help and having good friends make it possible to beat anything you may be struggling with. This one is uplifting and follows an interesting song structure, making it a definite standout on the album.
"Fix the Dark":
Remember Fall Out Boy's Take This To Your Grave? Do you want to experience a revamped version of it almost twenty years later? Listen to this track. I mean it as the utmost compliment. This song is reminiscent of early Fall Out Boy from the guitars to the self-deprecating lyrics. It is pop punk at its finest.
Being an English Lit grad, I am taken to the lyrics first 99% of the time. This is the exception. The beginning guitars and bass are genius. I'm hooked from the second they come in. They are dark, they are rock, they are what really set this track apart from the others. Again, they shine in the bridge, which is bouncy and another signature of the genre. I think it would have been easy for this track to be a bad attempt at writing a Fall Out Boy song, but it's not. It's paying homage to them in a succinct, but unmistakably Sleep On It, way.
As for the story, this track functions as a switch for our speaker, hence why it has to be so tonally different from the previous tracks. Before, our narrator was feeling trapped by the past, still entirely caught up in it. With this song, he tells us he's, "On my own / I'm learning about letting go" and "I can finally / See through all the smoke that hides the light." Things have changed for him and he's taking back control of his life, which propels us into...
"After Tonight":
Suddenly, we're in the present. Our narrator is in a very different place now, with new friends as they're "finally making everything alright." Bright in tone and almost impossible not to dance along to, this track leads us to believe the speaker is okay, almost. He's moving on. He's learned to let go.
Out of context of the album, this is the kind of song you listen to in the car with your friends and the windows down at full volume. Maybe you're on your way to be recklessly young, maybe you're about to run from the cops, maybe you're climbing on the roof of the house you're renting in the middle of winter. Was that last one just me? Oops. The point is, this is a song about friendship and the people who make this world a place you want to stick around.
"Take Me Back":
In terms of the story, this song could alternately be titled, "Just Kidding, I'm Not as Over It as I Thought." It's a little heartbreaking how quickly our speaker falls back into old patterns. "After Tonight," functions as a breath, a moment of bliss, but "Take Me Back," is reality kicking in. It is him realizing he can't go back and do it all over again, no matter how desperately he wishes he could.
Definitely more melancholy in tone, our narrator has had his "Blindfolded innocence / Taken away from me," as he wants someone to "Just show me the answer / Tell me what I lack, take me back." It would be so much simpler if things were just laid out for us, if we never had to go on the journey at all. By the end of it, it's "There to see / The best of me / Stripped from the bone." The process of moving on, growing up, is painful and ugly and regretful, but our speaker would do it again, thinking he'd get it right the second time around.
As for the music, this is the song that gives us our album title. When the chorus kicks in with, "Take me back / To pride and disaster / Sunshine and laughter / Where I got off track," I get goosebumps every time, without fail. The guitars come in full volume and I can't help but want to do something with all the emotions I'm feeling. This song knows how to evoke a response out of listeners.
"The Cycle of Always Leaving":
The breakup song. It wouldn't be a pop punk album without it. Where older pop punk used to be comprised of songs about destroying the woman who left the speaker and then destroying themselves, Sleep On It deviates from that borderline toxic way of talking about relationships.
This song isn't overly aggressive, opening with a beautiful guitar riff that cycles over and over through the song. It's sad and resigned, but it's also about breaking the cycle. It fits with the theme of moving on and letting go, but this one is explicitly about a romantic relationship. For our speaker, this is just one more thing for him to continue, "Running away from history repeating." While this track doesn't really tell us anything new, it is a good listen, especially if you've got an ex you aren't quite over.
"Logan Square":
The hometown song. Here's the thing. Pop punk used to be solely and comically defined by songs about getting out of your hometown. Then, Fall Out Boy showed up and started producing songs about how much they loved Chicago, and suddenly, it was okay for bands to talk about loving their hometowns. While this only furthers my claim that Fall Out Boy changed the way music exists today, it also makes me wonder what's so special about Chicago that Sleep On It wanted to pay homage to it on their record too.
In terms of the story, this song fits nicely. Up until now, our speaker has primarily been talking about being nostalgic for people and moving on from events that have happened. Now, he tells us "This place will always be home." He's been searching for this feeling, one of love and comfort and security, only for him to realize he's "Found [it] again" and he "finally feel[s] whole again" in his hometown. He "can't stay long," because the journey isn't over yet, but it's comforting to know this feeling he's been chasing does, and always will, exist somewhere in the world.
"Lost & Found":
We've made it. We've reached the end of the journey, although this track doesn't leave us with any sense of finality. Perhaps that's because finding yourself, growing up, is a never ending adventure. It doesn't stop when the song ends and it doesn't stop until you're dead. Maybe it doesn't even stop then.
Structurally, the song is split in halves, one being Lost and the other being Found. In the first verse, the speaker talks about "losing track of what I've lost again," and "I'm trying my best to show that I can shine through / All the darkness I seem to keep falling back into." In the second verse, he tells us, "I'm remembering the things I have found," and "all you can do is to / Lean on the ones who have loved through and through / And that home is the place that your heart pulls you back to."
The chorus hits hard. The narrator asks us to "Sing it all back to me" and "Spin me around to see / That I've always been enough for the people I love endlessly." He learned his lesson in "Under the Moment;" he's asking for help, but it's hopeful this time. He seems to feel like he might be okay.
In my opinion, this song is almost entirely lyrically driven, that is, up until the final minute. Unique to Sleep On It, a choice they consciously made, was to end the album on an extended instrumental, complete with a distinct piano melody. It gives us a sense of hope, while telling us it isn't over, they aren't over, not by a longshot.
The album began with the speaker telling us "We're not better yet." I wouldn't say we are healed, I wouldn't say we're better, but this song is evidence that we're on our way there.
Thanks for reading this ridiculously long discussion of Pride & Disaster! Let me know what you think in the comments below or reach out to me on social media. If you have an album you want me to talk about on the blog or any writing related questions, I'd love to hear from you!
