Sleeping Peonies — Ghosts and Other Things

Here lies before us Sleeping Peonies newest release, Ghosts and Other Things, limited to 150 copies. The duo has been around since 2009 and this is their second release.   Leaning heavily on the shoe gazer/ambient/post rock sound with touches of black metal gives it a diverse atmosphere to say the least. 

Sleeping Peonies seems to want to create an ethereal and melancholy mood to their sound and art.  Eight songs are ensconced here, generally sounding like a fuzzy, distorted maze of guitars flushed with well placed keyboards and woozy bass lines.  Tracks like “Lisps and Candyfloss Wisps”, “Ebbs and Floes” and “Autumnbloom and Lavender” are emotional blasts of angelic- like music played passionately against a massive wall of reverbed guitars and noisy drums. 

That said the only thing that brings down the momentum is the vocals.  A steady stream of raspy screams punctuates every song, except for the one instrumental.  After the first few songs it becomes highly monotonous and in the end annoying.  The only reprieve is the short bursts of spoken word pieces which are few and far between.

Without a doubt you can hear influences of Velvet Cocoon, Clair Cassis and Alcest to some extent.  Though the black metal inspiration mainly seems to be in the form of tremolo guitar and raspy vocals it is still there though somewhat diluted. While great in atmosphere, it has a fragmented feeling, almost like an incomplete thought.  It’s a strong musical piece, but whether it keeps its momentum is debatable.