Post-Hardcore/Pop-Metal? That’s the odd label that the six-piece call themselves, but there’s no real evident genre present in their album. Granted – there’s synth, some strange auto-tuned cleans and chugging breakdowns, but that pretty much just sums up the record itself. Oh dear!
It baffles me as to why bands have ‘Intro’ tracks. Can’t they just stick it in as the opening as the first track and not just make it separate and call it ‘Intro’? Ranting aside, the intro of Kiss Me Sleeping is still a pretty good one, but it climaxes to ‘Mascara Queen’, which may have a pretty near perfect production value, but just falls flat with bizarre vocals. Is it a woman singing? Is it a guy on auto-tune? No idea, but the vocal mix makes the song sound a bit messy. ‘She Dies at the End’ sounds a bit better, but literally, just a bit. The breakdowns are the same. The samples have been heard before from records of other bands, and it just gets boring. One of the upcoming singles, ‘Burn Me Alive’, then decides to come out of nowhere with an amazing riff and an Asking Alexandria zest, and you ask yourself “Where the hell did this come from?” A song that showcases stuff like that should almost set the tone of the album, but when tracks such as ‘Modern Whorefare’ and ‘Leaving’ come up, the whole vibe suddenly seems to vanish. ‘Fall to Arms’ finishes the album, and then you find the band more in their zone of music with a post-hardcore sound.
Take out the screaming, breakdowns and the synths, and Apparitions has some truly wonderful gems to showcase. Other than that, Kiss Me Sleeping is an album that collapses not because of any generic influence, but because of its insecure structure of a band trying to find out who they really are.
