{"id":93309,"date":"2022-04-15T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T23:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=93309"},"modified":"2022-04-26T18:41:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T17:41:07","slug":"album-review-sleepless-host-desecration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-sleepless-host-desecration\/","title":{"rendered":"SLEEPLESS – Host Desecration (2022) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SLEEPLESS
Host Desecration<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nMetal Warrior (2022)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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This debut full-length album from Portland, Oregon-based Sleepless \u2013 Kevin Hahn (vocals \/ lead guitar), Eric Sexton-Dorsett (rhythm guitar \/ bass, ex-Dead Conspiracy) and Eric Detablan (drums, ex-Dead Conspiracy) \u2013 is a nine-track affair which exhibits a technical thrash sound that marries to a more traditional metal groove.<\/p>\n

The 80s were full of bands like this, that sort of Meliah Rage and Metal Church sound which boasted occasional thrash flashes without fully resorting to such a vibe.<\/p>\n

Host Desecration<\/em> is good, solid metal that although humourless boasts some epic moments, such as with the howling \u2018Bite The Hands That Bleed\u2019 with its chugging riffs and powerful vocal moans.<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s Something In The Fog\u2019 brings further grey menace, where bass and guitar doubles up nicely to form an icy wall to support the whispery vocal stance of Hahn. This is where the sense of the epic comes in as the trio builds steadily in its rhythm, but as the chorus snakes in there\u2019s an essence of, say, Voivod, Mekong Delta and Watchtower only with less jarring, although the technical break does make for a nice surprise. And that\u2019s where Sleepless succeeds, somewhere in that thorny realm once occupied by the likes of Anacrusis.<\/p>\n

The title track provides further proof of the band\u2019s complex maze of thoughts and rhythmic patterns, and it\u2019s the sort of pallid, nifty melody I adore but which can alienate so many as Sleepless strives for perfection. The doomier aspects of the title track give way to cold, Nevermore vibes as a shuffling passage of scuttling guitar and percussion intrudes before the band unveils a thrashy surge. It\u2019s gloriously metal, but oh so clever and evasive.<\/p>\n

The doomy opening of \u2018Diviner Of Truth\u2019 snakes into Voivodian murkiness, while opener \u2018The King Who\u2019s Not There\u2019 is equally thorny and elusive, with flecks of Annihilator, strains of Watchtower, but less glinting, blinding and spasmodic.<\/p>\n

\u2018Mushroom Clouds At Night\u2019 brings hammering, yet punky percussion where everything feels grey and gloomy, but I can\u2019t help but dive into this despairing realm of drudgery even if the weather outside needs to match such stone-faced aggression. The band really succeeds though by marrying traditional metal tones to combat the more unnerving stabs of technicality.<\/p>\n

\u2018Mushroom\u2026\u2019 is a prime example of such fusing and meandering, which is also evident on \u2018Blood Libel (A Vampire Tale)\u2019 and album closer \u2018The Man Who Could Not Sleep\u2019. It\u2019s all very intelligent stuff, often quizzical and serious as Hell, but the metal world still needs this sort of music which stuns the grey matter with its power and intricacy.<\/p>\n

For some, the sound of Sleepless may cause sleepless nights simply due to those disjointed passages, but as someone who gulped this sort of devilish dissonance down in the 80s I can\u2019t recommend Host Desecration<\/em> enough. This is thinking man\u2019s metal for those who crave unexpected time changes and progressive metal flourishes. And it\u2019s as simple as that\u2026 sort of.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SLEEPLESSHost Desecration Metal Warrior (2022)Rating: 8\/10 This debut full-length album from Portland, Oregon-based Sleepless \u2013 Kevin Hahn (vocals \/ lead guitar), Eric Sexton-Dorsett (rhythm guitar \/ bass, ex-Dead Conspiracy) and Eric Detablan (drums, ex-Dead Conspiracy) \u2013 is a nine-track affair which exhibits a technical thrash sound that marries to a more traditional metal groove. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4774],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-sleepless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93310,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93309\/revisions\/93310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}