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SLEEPLESS
Host Desecration

Metal Warrior (2022)
Rating: 8/10

This debut full-length album from Portland, Oregon-based Sleepless – Kevin Hahn (vocals / lead guitar), Eric Sexton-Dorsett (rhythm guitar / bass, ex-Dead Conspiracy) and Eric Detablan (drums, ex-Dead Conspiracy) – is a nine-track affair which exhibits a technical thrash sound that marries to a more traditional metal groove.

The 80s were full of bands like this, that sort of Meliah Rage and Metal Church sound which boasted occasional thrash flashes without fully resorting to such a vibe.

Host Desecration is good, solid metal that although humourless boasts some epic moments, such as with the howling ‘Bite The Hands That Bleed’ with its chugging riffs and powerful vocal moans.

‘There’s Something In The Fog’ brings further grey menace, where bass and guitar doubles up nicely to form an icy wall to support the whispery vocal stance of Hahn. This is where the sense of the epic comes in as the trio builds steadily in its rhythm, but as the chorus snakes in there’s an essence of, say, Voivod, Mekong Delta and Watchtower only with less jarring, although the technical break does make for a nice surprise. And that’s where Sleepless succeeds, somewhere in that thorny realm once occupied by the likes of Anacrusis.

The title track provides further proof of the band’s complex maze of thoughts and rhythmic patterns, and it’s the sort of pallid, nifty melody I adore but which can alienate so many as Sleepless strives for perfection. The doomier aspects of the title track give way to cold, Nevermore vibes as a shuffling passage of scuttling guitar and percussion intrudes before the band unveils a thrashy surge. It’s gloriously metal, but oh so clever and evasive.

The doomy opening of ‘Diviner Of Truth’ snakes into Voivodian murkiness, while opener ‘The King Who’s Not There’ is equally thorny and elusive, with flecks of Annihilator, strains of Watchtower, but less glinting, blinding and spasmodic.

‘Mushroom Clouds At Night’ brings hammering, yet punky percussion where everything feels grey and gloomy, but I can’t help but dive into this despairing realm of drudgery even if the weather outside needs to match such stone-faced aggression. The band really succeeds though by marrying traditional metal tones to combat the more unnerving stabs of technicality.

‘Mushroom…’ is a prime example of such fusing and meandering, which is also evident on ‘Blood Libel (A Vampire Tale)’ and album closer ‘The Man Who Could Not Sleep’. It’s all very intelligent stuff, often quizzical and serious as Hell, but the metal world still needs this sort of music which stuns the grey matter with its power and intricacy.

For some, the sound of Sleepless may cause sleepless nights simply due to those disjointed passages, but as someone who gulped this sort of devilish dissonance down in the 80s I can’t recommend Host Desecration enough. This is thinking man’s metal for those who crave unexpected time changes and progressive metal flourishes. And it’s as simple as that… sort of.

Neil Arnold

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