ALBUM REVIEW: Sleep Party People – Heap of Ashes

Joyful Noise

Released: 11.11.22

Leaning away from his dream pop-heavy sound, Sleep Party People’s newest album, Heap Of Ashes, is far more abrasive – akin to being tickled with cheese graters.

The album’s brash soundscape is unsettling and aggressive, with its numbing opening track becoming an unrelenting force of attacking synths and suffocating bass lines. Brian Batz’s signature dream pop sound becomes smothered, occasionally piercing through the album’s layer of industrial hell – best seen with the second track Tide.

The first few tracks of this beautifully violent album have a joyous, intense energy to them; but the album does begin to lose steam halfway, as Batz’s reverbed vocals and haunting strums struggle to maintain the same energy and begin to lack punch.