I’ve stood all alone in crowded rooms, mostly unnoticed, some with loud punk music, some with rock, others with thoughtful 2000’s emo and some which fell silent. There’s one thing I know is special; when an artist plays and you feel like you are the only person who exists in that moment, sometimes it lasts a few seconds, sometimes a song and sometimes it lasts a whole performance. I imagine it’s hard to achieve but great performers never play at you but with you. It’s transformational for the viewer and the band itself. I’ve seen bands perform to crowds and there’s a shift where they suddenly become more confident and seem to have worked out something.
It takes something even more special to achieve this by just listening to an album alone in your room. The connection you feel is beyond words, it’s almost as though you closed your eyes as a cold breeze brushes your face and when you open them again the album is finished. You don’t quite feel the same. You don’t want to feel the same. You are both sad and happy. And the album becomes ever so precious, you can only listen to it in certain moments until you find yourself listening in all moments.
The band Sleep On It from Chicago made listeners feel they were the only person who existed whilst listening with their debut album Overexposed. Complied of Lead vocalist Zech Pluister, lead guitarist and vocalist TJ Horansky, guitarist and vocalist Jake Marquis, and drummer Luka Fischman. The 2017 album with 12 songs produced by State Champs lead singer Derek DiScanio and Seth Henderson. The album under the first impression gives off the vibe of a sad album, which has been presented as a happier album. A breakup album, and maybe it is but, in my opinion, it’s far more. This album articulated the summers with my friends where we pretended, we were okay when we weren’t. Where we fell deeply in love with the wrong people and things. Where we became defeated in the suburbs and became better people for it. Where we became people we could be proud of.
The first line of the album sings I’ve been trying to lose myself for a year now/been trying to find a new way to go back home. I don’t know what the band wanted that line to mean, but my interpretation was some sort of transformation. Leaving the version of yourself you are now and coming home as a better version. The way life shifts after your first summer out of high school, the way when you leave home for the first time and return to sleep in your old childhood room, or even the way when you fall fully in love for the first time in your life. The song continues and sings we lost everything we had along the way. For some of us, we need that, there’s a strange sense of joy in losing everything; it’s freeing, you can’t lose anything else so why not get better, take more risks and understand losing everything can be the best thing to happen.
Sleep on it took me back to the first time I discovered my roots in pop-punk/emo. The band made me feel like a scene kid again where everyone is under one roof and is understood. It took me back to the first time I heard Fallout Boy, the first album I bought (Blink 182 Enema of the State), it took me back to the first time I thought I knew what love was simple never complex — how I miss being so innocent. Scene kids going to shows made us feel like part of the world, a world. One that can reject us before we’ve weathered a true storm. These shows allowed us for a few hours to not feel out of place, for a few hours if knocked down we have others to pull them back up and for a few hours every time they go to see a show there’s a way to let our emotions out in a place they won’t be judged. It’s why I feel in love with the scene, to begin with, it’s the reason I haven’t let go.
There’s a grit to this album, one that makes the listener feel if they didn’t create this album their heart would come bursting out of their chest. One that suggests they came from the cold place Chicago is, one that suggests they needed this to get by. I love that. I can feel it in the lyrics, the guitars, and drums that they can’t accept not making something of themselves. I might be wrong, but I hope I’m not; there’s something very punk rock about trying to make something of yourself. I have the same feeling when I am writing myself, trying to make something of myself every day.
In the bridge of Distant Zech Pluister sings Maybe it’s all true/ I’ll never find somebody like you/ Or maybe I should really be alone/ Maybe it’s all true/ I never wanted someone like you/ It’s finally time you make your way back home. And then Jake Marquis screams MAKE YOUR WAY BACK HOME. You feel it as he screams the line, it steals my breath as I bop my head and mouth the line of the song every time it plays. I can picture him scream into a microphone on stage. I can picture the sweat roll down his face. I can picture the smile after he finishes the scream.
This album makes you feel as though having a backup plan is bullshit, it makes you believe in yourself; it makes you feel as though hope exists even in the darkness of night. Zech sings in photobooth Halfway to hope/ but dragging my feet through gardens I’ve grown with thoughts about you/but the flowers don’t bloom anymore. Letting go of something is hard, I think it always will be, but I think there’s some comfort in knowing there is still hope and letting go opens up room for something new to grow. The song continues by finishing the first verse by singing I still see your ghost in the door/I’ll find what my hands are made for. The last line is sung aggressively, with ferocity gurning the emotion of the band, the song, and the story. It’s real and perfect in the right moment. The song goes through the story of a person not being able to let go of a person they loved, a photograph. There is a conclusion the person no longer sees the ghost; they find what their hands are made for and most importantly they seem to rediscover hope and I feel we all need that.
This album got me through one of the toughest stages of my life, Overexposed gave me hope to believe I could be a better person and we all need this. 2018 was a long year and I listened to this album over and over hoping it could make something stop, something listen and something to change. I was going through my first serious breakup with a girl I thought was far too good for me, a girl I thought I could share a life with. It initially started as a breakup album and then turned into a healing one and then turned into an album to push me to chase a dream. With the crumpled thought, I could be alone forever, I would be a failure, I would never be able to leave my room and face the real world. I played the album on my old school car CD player on repeat, it didn’t come out of the disk drive for a few months, I sang every line. I had moments where my emotion bled through and moments I would smile. Sometimes all we need is new music, a dream and something to work towards. There’re zero promises of tomorrow being better, but there are zero promises that tomorrow is worse so are you going to be an optimist or and pessimist the choice comes down to you, just you. But this album gave me something tangible to hold onto, something to help me feel I wasn’t alone in this journey and sometimes we all need that.
This takes me to my favourite song on the album Fireworks featuring Derek DiScanio from State Champs. The song is fast and powerful in guitars and gives the listener the sense they are in a tiny dive bar venue watching the band play for the first time in front of 30 people, playing for free drinks and because they have to play because they are compelled too (Sleep On It sell-out shows and by no means is only play to 30 people anymore). The song sings in the chorus Lost my faith/ Made mistakes/ Kept myself awake/ Just to see how it felt to be strung out/ And I can say that I’ve changed That I’ll keep you safe/ I’ll be fine, don’t give up. In Which Derek comes in and sings Losing hope/ Sailing alone across your night sky/ I’m trying to show you fireworks, so/ Why don’t you notice? I couldn’t ask for anything more perfect, it’s everything I never knew I wanted in a song. As the song is wrapping up I see the stage slowly go darker, the lights dimming until I’m unable to see the stage and I’m the only one in a dark room and I smile.
There is one more song I want to talk about Overexposed. The Songs first line /You give up a few things chasing a dream/I keep running away from everything thing I made at 17. The introduction is flooded with heavy drums from Luka and a very real opening line from Zech. To chase a dream, you need to make sacrifices daily, you are not owed your dreams, we aren’t entitled to them. This album gives flashbacks to our teenage years, the fear of asking out a girl, the uncertainty with life, the way we feel everything is useless because we simply haven’t lived long enough to know better. There’s a constant reminder of our young struggles through the lyrics and more than anything this album reminds us we all grow up and that won’t ever be a bad thing.
Sleep On It has their sophomore album coming out on the 9/13/2019 called Pride and Disaster. Pre-order it, buy it, listen to it. If it’s anything like their debut album listeners are in for a real treat, and a new wave of emotions. I expect something different, but part of me wants an album the same as the last there’s nothing wrong with wanting either; what you can expect is the same honesty, intense lyrics, and raw emotion out for the world to see. I don’t need the album personally to help me through my shit, someone else however might. I’m no longer clouded with fear. I no longer feel like the lost 17-year-old I once was. I’m no longer a lost boy.
I think this band is about to make some serious noise and I can’t wait to see where that takes them, they deserve this.
In the final song of Overexposed Autumn (I Wish I Was Better) I don’t think is a conclusion to the album. It feels unfinished and that is sometimes a better way to end an album than we think. Not every story needs an end when the story is still being written. As the final notes of the song are played out, you hear the guitars shutter and drums hit hard, then silence I think about what this album did for me, I never planned to write about this album but felt compelled to in those final notes. This album made me feel like I could make it, while not knowing what it is. It made me feel the people I had loved had never left, not really and it made me feel all of this without knowing it that’s all I ever needed.
