Welding together metal and hardcore isn’t exactly innovative for heavy music, but when it’s done with such teeth-rattling conviction as with While She Sleeps, it’s a welcome reminder that, when done right, it’s still a monstrous force of nature.
The quintet have been gaining some serious recognition in 2011, not least thanks to debut album The North Stands For Nothing garnering universal praise, their now-honed live shows never going down as anything less than immense and, as frontman Lawrence ‘Loz’ Taylor notes, the internet is bringing the band a whole new platform for success.
“When we started there was a lot more flyering than there was Facebook and MySpace,” says the singer. “Then MySpace took off, and I think that’s where you saw a massive boost in bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Enter Shikari. The internet has really helped a lot of new bands in that respect.”
It’s certainly helped While She Sleeps spread the word, but more than anything else, it’s their dedication to doing things their way and never bowing to trends or scenes that has kept their momentum going.
“It’s passionate and it’s honest,” adds Loz of the band’s music. “We’re not trying to jump onto the next thing that’s coming along, and we’ve got our influences that we’ve always had. When the hardcore scene moved on and everyone flaked out on metalcore, we decided, ‘We’ve always enjoyed playing metal anyway, so we’re not gonna flake too.’”
And, if early indications are much to go by, this mob are only going to become even more crushing as the years go on.
“We want to get heavier,” confirms Loz. “Other bands move on and seem to want to go lighter, but we want to push ourselves. We just hope people can stick with us.”
This was published in Metal Hammer issue 225
