Sleeping With SirensGossip

Name a song more essential to the millennial scene kid zeitgeist  If You Can’t Hang…we dare you. The first half of the decade saw the likes of Sleeping With Sirens, Pierce The Veil and Of Mice & Men flood the Tumblr feeds of teens globally and usher in a new wave of Warped Tour-core heavy music. Emotionally over the top, catchy and oh-so cute, these bands dominated a generation of heart-on-your-sleeve scene kids who have since grown up.

Holding the crowns as kings of the scene, 2013’s abysmal attempt at appealing to the mainstream with Feel unearthed tensions between longtime fans and the band. 2015’s Madness saw a return to their post-hardcore roots, yet still lacking the punch their establishing works offered.

Gossip, their first release under the Warner Bros. megalabel sees the boys taking cues from You Me At Six’s transition from pop punk luminaries to stadium rock conquerors. Shedding all signs of scene skin, eyeliner and flippy fringes, Gossip is by the numbers radio rock to a T.

In a bid to remain relevant, shedding all signs of their past is a business minded move from the boys.

Album opener and title track sees Quinn confront his naysayers and #haters with scathing Year-8 school diary burns like, ‘but I’ve got 9 lives, you only have 3’. The Taylor Swift level of maturity is similarly reciprocated in the snooze-worthy arrangement and mechanical guitar playing. Legends (currently used as the official song of the US Olympic team) sounds like an off-cut from the High School Musical soundtrack with its truly painful, saccharine chorus.

Sleeping With Sirens have always proven a knack for a heart-string tugger (admit it, Roger Rabbit still features in more than one of your acoustic playlists…) however, playing on this strength sees lifeless and emotionally flaccid results in the form of Hole In My Heart and  I Need To Know. Pop-ballad Closer is pure saccharine, well executed corniness that’ll serve well for Kellin to beckon the crowd to adorn the stage with phone lights whilst he exercises his well-known falsetto through a range of vocal runs and hair flips.

On a more positive note, Cheers oozes a cock-rock bravado, tinged with stomping riffs and tumbling snares—a proper rock banger.

In a bid to remain relevant, shedding all signs of their past is a business minded move from the boys. However, with their peers (Pierce The Veil) proving maturing and building on what’s previously established can reap rewards, Sleeping With Sirens have stripped themselves of any personality, resulting in a lifeless album that offers little, yet asks so much in return.

STICK THIS NEXT TO: You Me At Six, Don Broco, Lower Than Atlantis
STANDOUT TRACKS: Cheers, Trouble, Closer