Reviewed on Friday August 12.
Sleepmakeswaves’ gig at the Metro Theatre didn’t exactly have the smoothest start. Halfway through opening act The Contortionist’s set, an ear-splitting ringing sounded out. Everybody stood around nonchalantly. Was it the smoke machines? Whatever it was, everyone had to evacuate.
No one really knew if The Contortionist were going to come back on. Well, as it turned out there actually wasn’t much to worry about (does that mean the original apathetic reaction was justified all along?) and after a 20 minute delay the show was back on.
In fact, alternative takes on the best practice of technology seemed to be a theme of the night: pre- and post-fire alarm, The Contortionist’s set was dominated by drum sound, with the vocals proving hard to hear. But perhaps it was simply all part of the Indianapolis’ band’s 23-string guitar prog-metal act.
Not too long after, Sleepmakeswaves came onto the stage in a 3-1 formation, with a microphone hanging around in case either guitarist or the bearded bass player wanted to chat to the crowd. They immediately blew through two hits one after the other,‘To You They Are Birds, To Me They Are Voices In The Forest’ and ‘The Stars Are Stigmata’.
That said, similar to the problems that affected The Contortionist’s set, it became a bit jarring when Sleepmakeswaves’ mid-ranges disappeared into a wall of deafening noise. To add to that, the lights also seemed to be turned up to a blinding 11.
The mixing became slightly better as the band entered the middle of the set by bookending one of their best songs, ‘Great Northern’, in-between rather lengthy tracks from their first few albums. While ‘Great Northern’ is structured and easily approachable, the other tracks felt overextended. For example, ‘…And So We Destroyed Everything’ felt longer than its 12 minutes.
However, the band swapped doldrums for a cyclone, bringing out ‘Traced In Constellations’ – the release of that single being the reason for the tour – and the banger to end all bangers, ‘Something Like Avalanches’ for a final thrash out, before waltzing out again for an encore of ‘A Gaze Blank And Pitiless As The Sun’.
During the show, bearded bassist Alex Wilson told the crowd how much it meant to the band that they came back after the fire alarm, and towards the end, he mentioned that they were preparing to start work on a new album. Both the band and the crowd were left feeling warm, if not also a little bit deafer than when they walked in.
