Team Sleep, Deftones frontman Chino Moreno’s art-rock side project, released a captivating if fragmentary debut in 2005, blending gauzey textures, thistly melodies and shimmery flecks of electronica into lush, edgeless dreampop.
After a 10-year hibernation, the band return with their follow-up, entirely written, performed and recorded in front of a live studio audience over the course of two days.
The result is a balanced and arresting clutch of pillowy shoegaze and rangey experimentalism that largely succeeds. Highlights such as Formant and (Ever) Foreign Flag showcase watery textures and lush atmospherics converging with dramatic intensity. Others, such as Your Skull Is Red and Blvd. Nights, offer expanded and more fully realised updates of tracks from the debut. There’s no abundance of variance here, and while abbreviated cuts like No feel more like unformed ideas than distinct works, Team Sleep’s sophomore effort marks a broad step forward. With more than two days’ studio time, one can only imagine what they could accomplish.
