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Sorrow – Sleep Now Forever
Review:
Sleep Now Forever is the second and final album released by Sorrow, the post-Strawberry Switch- blade group fronted by singer Rose McDowall. Originally released in 1999 and long since deleted it is a cornucopia of pastoral, elegiac folk music, swirling atmospherics, hymnal compositions and above it all the alternating towering and fragile vocal performances of McDowall. Released through the group’s own Piski Disk Records, Sleep Now Forever was distributed by World Serpent which struggled through the early 2000s with financial woes, eventually folding due to bankruptcy in 2004. Due to the company’s troubles, Sleep Now Forever was never distributed widely and was a victim of the company’s failure. Released on CD only, original copies are now rare and only traded on second hand channels. Remastered by Mikey Young.
***
Recorded from the mid- to late-’90s, Sleep Now Forever finds the duo of Rose McDowall and Robert Lee in fine creative health. Starting with the flowing a cappella overdubs that begin “Soldier,” McDowall’s still wondrous voice acting as melody and as texture, Sleep Now Forever is neither simply acid-folk contemplation nor modern pop record but something entrancing, in its own universe. (That it missed out on the attention that the ‘New Weird America’ pseudo-scene gave to such music in later years is an unfortunate accident of timing.) The sense of hooks that McDowall showed herself to be a queen of in earlier years has hardly left, even if delivered at slower paces, while her voice seems to have gained in richness, while Lee’s understated guitar accompaniment is a perfect foil. The Asian-sounding drones on “Love Dies” and the simple but spot-on echoing notes starting “Epiphany” are two fine examples among many. The additional instrumentalists, including uilleann pipers and cellists, add a gentle richness throughout — the album is neither spare nor overblown, but a glazed, careful balance, a full-sounding record at all turns. “Haunting” lives up to its name perfectly, a cascade of keyboard and ambient textures that feels like a gentle rise to the heavens, mysteriously beautiful. At times there’s almost something suggestive of the mood of late-’60s melancholic pop — Nancy Sinatra, say — translated into Sorrow’s particular setting, making songs like “October Faul” all the more inspired. For all the aural beauty there can be dark subjects lyrically — not perhaps all that surprising from the World Serpent-affiliated cycle of bands, but songs like “Turn Off the Light,” a rejection of a person — or a god? — and the title track, bidding farewell to a dying individual, have their own power. If there’s a small downside to the album it’s that it’s so much of a constant musical mood piece that individual songs ultimately stand out less than the overall experience — but a fine one that is. — AMG
Track List:
01 - Soldier
02 - Love Dies
03 - Turn Off the Light
04 - Haunting
05 - Fear Becomes You
06 - October Faul
07 - Wishing Stone
08 - Nomadic Man
09 - Epiphany
10 - Angel
11 - Sleep Now Forever
Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, indie-folk
Origin: Scotland
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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