Best known for their supporting role as the phenomenal live accompaniment to folk punk’s preeminent ambassador, Frank Turner, The Sleeping Souls are moving on to pastures greener with their first ever album of their own devising. Admittedly, they haven’t quite escaped the incessantly-on-tour Turner, as the album was partially recorded at his rehearsal space, but that’s besides the point. Debut release Just Before The World Starts Burning is out now, so any fans of Plosivs, Hot Snakes or Elliot Smith should take note and preemptively run their headphones up their sleeves to hide from their boss.
The first thing to note about this album is that it won’t reinvent your view of the band – The Sleeping Souls have still stayed within their wheelhouse musically. There’s plenty of folk elements, some punky energy and rocky grit sprinkled throughout, and the entire LP is rife with tender moments. Vocalist and lead songwriter Cahir O’Doherty (Fighting With Wire, Jetplane Landing, New Pagans) provides a soft Irish lilt for three quarters of an hour whilst the rest of the group get into the groove.
“With a little more consistency they would be on for an absolute stunner of an album.”
A lovely example of the album’s best qualities is on the song ‘Remember Boann’, which instantly sets the scene of looking out a rainy window whilst driving through foggy countryside roads. Boann is the name of an Irish goddess, by whose actions the river Bóinn was created. The track ebbs and flows similarly to its namesake, and is a beautiful piece of music about change made arguably even more poignant by the album’s title and the implications that provides.
The most notable moment of the whole release comes late on as track eight ‘The Selfist’ tugs on the listeners heartstrings, almost pleading at someone dearly close to the vocalist to stop being so selfish and to start listening. Everyone has dealt with such people, but rarely has the topic ever been talked or sung about so delicately and powerfully. The songs that come after it are also very strong, in particular ‘Liar/Lover’ and ‘Ceremony’, serving to firmly bolster the back half of the album and prop it up as comfortably the better of the two sides.
To reiterate, Just Before The World Starts Burning will not distort the perception of The Sleeping Souls massively in terms of their musical scope, and a couple of tracks do feel like they’ve been included for the sake of length – not to say any are bad, but simply that a couple don’t bring anything to the table other than merely existing to fill time. However, the high points of this album do feel like they touch a little bit of magic. With a little more consistency they would be on for an absolute stunner of an album.