The musical genius (a term I don’t throw around too much) Ryan O’Neal and his project Sleeping at Last continue his Atlas series. Now, we find ourselves at the first of two Space themed EPs.
Creativity and organic creation abound in this masterfully crafted EP. Flowing seamlessly out of the preceding Light EP we get “Sun,” a swelling, warm composition that finds Ryan singing with such passion he might as well be shouting the chorus from the roof of the Burj Dubai – “We are the dust of dust / we are the apple of God’s eye / we are infinite as the universe we hold inside.” “Mercury,” cleverly recorded using metallic drums (the planet is mostly metal! see?) functions as a sort of response to a divine call to missions, or to follow wherever the singer is guided. “Venus” is appropriately a love song (Venus is the Roman goddess of love). While the characteristics of Venus aren’t hinted at a lot (it’s the hottest planet in the solar system, with a brutal greenhouse effect going on over there) the song is chock full of space metaphors applied to love. It’s a bit cheesy, but fits the flow of the EP well. “Venus” switches things up from the previously pensive “Mercury.”
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/110843267″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]“Earth” gets us back in pensive territory, and I’m reminded a lot of Sleeping at Last’s sophomore record Keep No Score. As there are seemingly infinite directions one could take a song about Earth, O’Neal pens a chorus full of enough depth as to be open to some subjective interpretation – “fault lines tremble underneath my glass house.but I put it out of my mind / long enough to call it courage / to live without a lifeline / i bend the definition of faith to exonerate my blind eye./ ’’til the sirens sound, i’m safe.'” “Moon” is an instrumental. I’ve contended since the Yearbook series that some of the very best compositions from Sleeping at Last have been without lyrics. “Moon” is majestic, contrasting lower-scale chords with lush strings. “Mars” wraps up the EP with some subtle yet pounding drums that back a slightly ethereal exploration about the passing of time.
Sleeping at Last has done it again. This is a near perfect record.
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