The Sleepless Nights

Published January 10, 2008.
Sleepless Nights
Turn Into Vapour
Forward Music Group

Made up of members of The Superfantastics and The Establishment, Halifax’s Sleepless Nights are the closest thing the city has to a supergroup. Like its members’ musical origins, Turn Into Vapour is a summation of everything the Halifax indie scene can offer.

The lyrics are smart but unselfconscious, the music ambitious without burying the pop hooks and the production clean but retaining a raw edge.

Early standouts include “Got Caught” and “Allyson Got Robbed” with its memorable refrain, “get your goddamn hands of off my girl.” This one should find a lot of action on iPods and at parties for the rest of the year.
Ian Gormely - The Coast - Halifax, NS

Thursday, January 31. 2008

One of the most annoying things in the world is hearing a really great band, and then realizing they just stopped in your town a few days or weeks before. Case in point: Sleepless Nights were in Ottawa last week, but -- rave reviews notwithstanding -- for some reason I only started listening to their latest, Turn Into Vapour, today. And now I'm kicking myself for not listening sooner, because it's a phenomenal album from start to finish and sounds like it would've been a blast to see live.

Of course, when you're talking about East Coast rockers a fun time is pretty much implied, and Sleepless Nights' music is embued with the same kind of upbeat poppiness around which bands like Sloan and Wintersleep have built their careers. As "Got Caught" shows, the band certainly knows their way around a catchy chorus.

More than that, though, they know how to punch things up a bit wth a dose of Replacements-esque rock. The liner notes, unfortunately, don't make it clear who does what on the album, but "Allysun Got Robbed" and "Kids On Fire" demonstrate that someone in the band has a nice, gritty voice when they need to, and that the rest of the band knows how to back that up with just the right kind of punkish pop. It blends together with the more upbeat stuff perfectly, and it makes a compelling argument that Sleepless Nights are a band to watch -- especially in person, so if they're stopping in your town over the last few dates of their tour, make an effort to make it out. If they're not, then make sure you pick up a copy of Turn Into Vapour and study it well, because you absolutely need to hear them. - i (heart) Music

Although these boys hail from beautiful Halifax Nova Scotia I would easily place their debut full length disc alongside the stalwart acts of the western American pop rock music; Death Cab for Cutie, the Long Winters, and Band of Horses. From the opening note of track one, Allyson Got Robbed, to the swirling delerious end of the album’s closing track, Breathe Deep Tornado, there is not a moment on Turn Into Vapour that will only leave you wanting more. Although the term shoegaze is bandied about a bit much I do believe these boys take the best parts of that genre and turn them into a weapon of mass musical bliss. Take a listen to these two tracks here and you’ll be a convert immediately.

The album, available at CD Baby, is a sparkling debut and I would definitely recommend putting it into your collection in some form. All eight tracks are gems and they range from the driving pulse of Got Caught, to a melancholic rocker Kids on Fire, to the eight minute sprawling landscape of Breathe Deep Tornado. Trust me good reader you will not be disappointed. I know I wasn’t. - TheWorldForgot.com

Sleepless Nights
Turn Into Vapour (Forward/Sonic Unyon)

Indie rock sheds some flab and lets pop melody and commanding rhythm reign on the latest release by this Halifax band, not to be confused with a Maryland-based, acoustic emo act of the same name (they have 981 MySpace friends, he has three).

Over eight songs, in under 40 minutes, the band succinctly makes their case with sharp hooks, a brisk pace (save for the more meditative slow jams at the end) and sing-along slacker choruses. Buy it at their show, and check their MySpace for an ode to our scene, off the band’s 2006 Hang Up EP, “Godspeed You Deathwolf.” 8/10 (Lorraine Carpenter) - The Montreal Mirror

Chance plays a big part in music. You get a mailshot about a band. You read the contents of said email and, for a change, the PR isn’t full of hyperbole and bullshit. Just a simple description that makes you think “well, I think I might like that”. And so it happened with Sleepless Nights. Their Myspace tracks were impressive enough for me to jump on the link for their full album, their sophomore effort, the rather fantastic Turn Into Vapour. And with it the days of slacker rock have returned.

It might be short, sharp and lacking on the sweet front, but Sleepless Nights remind me of Lou Barlow’s efforts as both Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. It’s gentle weave of lo-fi indie rock, singer-songwriter clichés and foot-tapping rhythms create songs that stick in your mind for days after. Beginning with the keyboard drawl of “Allyson Got Robbed” and its tale of late night muggings, “She’s a little shaken up, but she didn’t get hurt”, and its boyfriend bravado refrain of “Hands off my girl, get your goddamn hands off of my girl!”. It’s this refrain that drives the song; the guitars, drum and bass all race along like the ensuing chase through darkened streets. Aaron Wallace’s voice laid back yet full of stoner menace.

The chiming guitars of “Got Caught” perfectly balance its racing drums; my foot uncontrollably taps in through its upbeat arrangement. Another laid back after-school anthem, “We can walk together back home from school, through the stormy weather, whatever is cool”, getting caught behind the bike-shed’s smoking and doing stuff that your parents would rather not know about. The bright, big sound arrangement of “Arabian Nights” proves that Sleepless Nights are no one-hit wonder as well. Its grand, rumbling guitars and drums underpinning the pining of Wallace for his distant lover; “How many more nights until you come back home”. This is followed by the power-pop of “Amounts to Nothing” which, with its staccato guitar riff, seems to echo the fruitlessness of efforts which come to nothing. “Kids on Fire“ should be an anthem for 2008. It’s crackling riffs and rebellious lyrics perfectly meld to create a track that should soundtrack parties and fill dance floors the world over. In fact, it could be the next weapon in the War on Terror, keeping “the infidels at bay”.

There are a few moments where it eases off a bit too much. The gentle drone of “Hang Up” feels like a non-event after what’s gone before whilst the album, at just eight tracks, is far too short for this kind of filler. However, this is a minor quibble. Out of the blue, the Sleepless Nights have arrived to bring out my inner slacker; to pull on my heart strings, to make my feet tap and to make me feel great. Thank heavens for Sleepless Nights!
85% - TheLineOfBestFit.com (UK)

"I think we really have the Beatles
to blame for that."
There's something you don't hear
every day. The Beatles are many
things: influential, lauded, a
cash-money machine---but rarely the
subject of blame. To A.A. Wallace,
lead singer and mastermind behind
Halifax's Sleepless Nights, it really
is the Fab Four's fault.
"It all comes from the way the
Beatles were marketed in North America," Wallace continues. "There was the cute one, the
serious one, the stupid one..."
When Wallace started Sleepless Nights in 2003, he wanted to create a band that---in its
structure---defied that marketing impulse. No matter who came and went from the group,
everyone knew they were replaceable.
"The one problem that always seemed to happen was, when someone would leave they
would feel you were slighting them or dissing them by continuing to play the material
you had played when they were in the group," he says. "They felt like they had some
ownership over that, regardless of whether they had actually written the songs or not."
The problem comes from attitudes in indie rock, according to Wallace. When a member of
a band leaves, so goes part of a band's identity. "That comes from marketing characters"
within bands and not bands as single, unified entities, he says.
Even once-successful acts like the recently reformed Smashing Pumpkins catch flak when
members leave or are excluded from reunions. This stands in stark contrast to metal bands
in the '80s, such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath. These bands not only
switched members, they replaced lead singers. "Even the Ramones. They're all characters,"
says Wallace. "They even changed their fucking names."
Sleepless Nights have been home to more than 20 musicians over their five-year lifespan,
Wallace estimates. The movement has been the result of differing priorities: For some band
members jobs and school took precedence over music. "I don't want to have a job or a
degree. I just want to play in a rock-and-roll band."
The revolving door of personnel and contributors has garnered Sleepless Nights frequent
comparisons to Broken Social Scene, something Wallace understands but is quick to
dismiss, pointing out that the groups started out at the same time but were unaware of
each other. Because he's remained the one constant, different rules perhaps apply to him.
Wallace calls the shots, making Sleepless Nights less collaborative than Broken Social
Scene.
"I personally wrote and arranged everything, except one song, that we've ever done," he
says. "Not that I feel like I own the material---people do contribute---but the thing is, the
song will still exist whether they're there or not." For the group's new record, Turn Into
Vapour, the music took an unexpected pop turn. The album is tight, catchy and loud.
"It's being pegged as being a very upbeat kind of record but the content's not at all."
Wallace says this came from touring the band's last release, the Hands Up EP, and from
the band wanting people to stop talking and pay attention during their sets. "Now we're
probably the loudest band in Halifax," he says proudly.
The Sleepless Nights founder never writes with a concept or destination point, rather he
puts out albums when he has enough material. Having a backyard studio helps speed the
process---the next Sleepless Nights record is already completed. "We just have to wait to
put it out because you can't put out that many records at once," Wallace says.
Despite his prolific output, he says he's almost completely stopped listening to modern
music and is, instead, looking to the past for new sounds. But what he really wants to do
with his own work is to mash entire musical ideas and experiences into one mega-project,
one burst of sound.
- The Coast