In post-rock, size is everything – and Australians Sleepmakeswaves waste no time in showing off the seismic, speaker-rattling production of their fifth album.
Continuing a trend started with 2020’s These Are Not Your Dreams, the Sydney group have dispensed with an external producer, seeing outside influences as a distraction rather than a benefit.
Celebrating 18 years of existence in 2024, the band believe their biggest achievement to date is to have simply “endured” an adventure marred by line-up changes, gear theft, failed relationships and crashing computers. While that emphasises resilience, it detracts from an art form they have so diligently made their own.
They’ve always taken the predominantly instrumental, reverb-drenched hypnotism of post-rock down more aggressive pathways than many of their peers. Yet they’ve also drawn a parallel tranquillity alongside that grit for a broad sonic and emotional spectrum – and this latest album proves that, showcasing the band at their fluid best.
Super Realm Park attests to that light and shade aesthetic, spinning into life with a positive, danceable keyboard refrain punctuated by a grinding turnaround from guitarist Otto Wicks-Green.
Yet, as action-packed as it is, with Alex Wilson’s loud and growling bass lines gleefully hurling themselves into every pocket of space available, it also holds its breath for two well-crafted dips. The first is all acoustic guitars and watery keyboard undercurrents as the band catch a break.
The second is led by a piano motif that’s accompanied by whirring feedback. Both sections consequently make the minefield that marks the journey from A to B even more deadly.
Elsewhere, Ritual Control delivers supercharged alt rock aesthetics in one moment and soars over vivid, ice-capped landscapes in the next. Black Paradise offers enchanted clean guitars and grandiose string arrangements across a song that glides slowly but surely towards its lofty crescendo.
There’s acres of space for Wicks-Green’s weeping guitar lines to pour out of the mix
When it’s done with its relentless rhythmic attack, Terror Future brings in a powerful vocal refrain to blanket its muscular-yet-jagged outro, before counterbalancing its thunder with the post-storm calm of its title track. It benefits from being dialled back, leaving acres of space for Wicks-Green’s weeping guitar lines to pour out of the mix.
The pair of songs finds the band at their diverse and ever-interesting best. Sleepmakeswaves are continuing to separate themselves from the post-rock pack, delivering their own twist on the genre with bucketloads of aplomb.
It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It is on sale now via Bird’s Robe Records.
