Some will tell you that rock and roll has to be raw-edged and raucous, ragged and raging to do its work properly. Others maintain that it is the poise and polish that makes the music sound big and anthemic. What is so great about “Sleepy,” the new one from The Daily Ration, is that it is able to combine both such approaches into its sonic DNA, and the results are glorious.
This single, taken from the band’s second album, due to arrive early next year, is built from the attraction of those opposites and makes for a brilliant, two-pronged attack. On the one hand, the polish and production create suitable atmospherics that shimmer in a hallucinogenic sonic haze, capturing the band’s vision of waking in the purity of the desert after a night where sleep is confounded by hours of troubling thoughts and wrestling with metaphorical demons.
On the other hand, such atmospheres and sonic vistas are balanced by the power and poignancy of the rock and roll form that such an idea takes. This means that for every drifting vibe, there is a solid and sensational riff, and for every sonic wash, there is a purposeful sonic punch. As a song it is both big, and clever, a rarity indeed.
This is the sound of muscle being augmented by melody, atmosphere tempering energy, power being put to purpose, groove, and grandeur being turned into grace.
On the strength of this single, the new album can’t come quickly enough.
