theophiliacs

Artist: Sleeping At Last
Album: Storyboards (2009)
Origin: Chicago, IL
Genre: Alternative, Indie

I must admit I’m not one for the Contemporary Christian Music.

In my mind, the practical distinction between “Contemporary Christian Music” and “music that happens to be made by at least one or more Christians” is slim (this seems to be largely a marketing gimmick propagated by “Christian Record Labels” that are often owned by the bigger music conglomerates anyway). Consequently, CCM is often too quaint in its artistic scope and suffers from a “Sanctified Mimicry” complex (i.e. Hey kids! Let’s go listen to the Christian version of Coldplay!) How could someone push forward into new musical frontiers if their very appeal is built on copying someone else’s sound?

As a result, my 3K+ iTunes library is noticeably lacking the “standards” one might expect from a cradle Evangelical. One could even say I’ve intentionally purged my library in a fit of imagined artistic purity.

And yet over the last few years one name has remained: Sleeping At Last. The young trio from Chicago has consistently survived my cleansings–and I keep buying their albums.

As a college freshman, I was astonished by the maturity of their sound, especially since they weren’t very much older than me. Sleeping At Last introduced me to the epic scale of post-rock. They paired the familiar blend of guitar, bass and drum I knew too well with novel strings and orchestral percussion to create a completely new experience for me, much like when I eventually became old enough to drink wine with my mother’s pastas. I’m not so naive as to believe they were alone in experimenting with these sonant environments–but they were my first.

SAL’s fourth studio album, Storyboards does not disappoint this admitted fanboy. I’m not a musician, so my review can only be written in terms of sensations and metaphor. Storyboards, like any decent piece of art, requires more than a casual encounter. It’s an album I grew into and had to find the right setting to appreciate. Less stadium rock than SAL’s previous efforts, this album is best eased into–like a warm bath or a heady stout. Their opening tracks are listless and airy, a more reflective approach that elevates the lyrics.

The Christian presence is certainly obvious, but they’re altogether poetic and mostly avoid the contrite dogma normally associated with Christian music. Like these taken from the album’s marching-est song, Timelapse:

and every constellation
is a fraction of God’s DNA
that we were made to notice and navigate.

as the moon commands the tide
to balance the weight of change,
we must learn to follow all the same.

A surprisingly inventive track is Clockwork which begins like a 50′s sitcom theme with bopping strings and an optimistic pace. The listener waits patiently for the real song to start and tie the intro into the larger work, but the attitude never dies to the end as the vocalist belts out mournfully,

Still unsatisfied,
We chase what we’re denied.
As generations wait,
We can’t resist the taste of possibility.
Gears turn, endlessly,
To bring us back to life again.
Like clockwork, we begin.

I obviously don’t write for Pitchfork and can’t tell you much about Sleeping At Last’s position in the wider world of indie music. I can only include here what they’ve meant to me and how I’ve appreciated their work.

As the soft ballad Side by Side explains, one can’t always find the right words to describe pleasant experiences,

there is no language for what we’ve seen,
only the sweetness that bends us to our knees,
and all of these fumbling words
to explain what it means

So I’d suggest you give them a listen for free here or put up $14 bones (includes S&H) for the album here and listen for yourself.