Album: The Sleeper
Artist: The Leisure Society
Label: Willkommen Records / Full Time Hobby
Release date: 30th March 2009
Listen to the album in Spotify
The Leisure Society seem uncomfortable with fame. With the first single from their debut album, The Sleeper, nominated for a Ivor Novello Award, they’ve been thrust into the limelight overnight. But these aren’t rock-stars: they’re human beings, with nine-to-fives, bus passes and tax returns. Music is a passion, not a profession, and it shows.
“The Sleeper” tells the inevitable truth of death and human transience (roots will reclaim the bricks that we lay / worms will reclaim the soil) with an even balance of hope and wistful resignation. “Last of the Melting Snow” (the song that brought them fame) is just poetry with an orchestral afterthought, a beautiful song among many beautiful songs.
Nick Hemming’s voice is a lullaby set to sparse guitar melodies and light strings, and every song is a subtly-penned amble down memory lane. Even in the rare moments when The Sleeper lets your attention slip away, you still find it nestling comfortably in the back of your consciousness. The swan-song, “Love’s Enormous Wings”, closes out the album with a ukelele and a tender thought.
The band play with unprepossessing grace and folksy charm, and it’s glorious. The last time an album was hyped so much, the disappointment broke our hearts. The Sleeper does the same, but there’s no disappointment to it. It’s a complex album about complex emotions, but it seems so effortless.
Our Arbitrary Numerical Verdict:
Interview vid courtesy of Bandstand Busking
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Marcus Kernohan is the founder and editor-in-chief of Stereokill.net. Email him at 
Beautifully articulated review of my definite album of the year so far – you are SO right, the album achieves so much with seemingly no effort or straining to grab the heart-strings. I simply do not know of another band that has emerged SO fresh and SO real. Long let them make music!