Some Random Reviews & Interviews

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Interviews

Interview with the band from Small Blue Star Fanzine
Interview with Christian Smith i found online

Reviews

NME:

Stony Sleep

A Slack Romance

(Big Cat)

The cherubic Ben Smith wants to rock'n'roll. School's no fun and no-one wants to listen to sixth-form poetry unless it's set to music. But he'll make them listen. After all, he's got a guitar, he's got a grunge pedal and he's gonna play all that unhappiness out of his skinny little frame. He's in Stony Sleep, and that difficult second album, 'A Slack Romance', is teenage angst through and through.

Stony Sleep have upped the Bratpop stakes. Since the limp indie-rock of 1996's 'Music For Chameleons', they've recruited White Zombie's mixer, grown some Korn-esque dreadlocks and they're heavy-riffing like it never went out of fashion.

Sadly, though, imitation seems to be the order of the day. 'Lady Lazarus' and 'She's A Honey' ape the thunderous dynamic of Black Francis just once too often, and 'Khartoum' leafs at leisure through the lyric-sheet of Kurt without ever quite striking an empathetic note. 'A Slack Romance' is competent pop-metal from beginning to end, but, frankly, give or take the odd sensitive string section, it's not a million miles from Silverchair.

While Stony Sleep can adequately plumb the depths of misery, they seldom articulate what the rest of the post-grunge hordes cannot. And that's the saddest thing.

5/10

Louis Pattison

Stony Sleep - A Slack Romance
This is the best non-dance LP of 1999 so far. Stony Sleep are not heavy enough for Kerrang! But probably too heavy for NME, so I donÕt know where all their fans are going to come from, but they definitely deserve plenty on the strength of this second album. A Slack Romance features many different styles - most tracks rely heavily on guitars, but the final track is a soft piano led end is a complete contrast to the aggressive rock of the other 12 tracks. Every song is well written, well produced, and, most importantly, has a very funky name - Christmas On Mars, Feline Groovy, Superbadasssweetdaddyjones etc etc. The only thing this album lacks is the silver lizard which featured on the sleeve of the debut! ThereÕs even a song if you leave the CD playing long enough! This band will go far!
Review above came from here

STONY SLEEP Midmay (Big Cat) CD Single Ozzy Osbourne thinks Stony Sleep are "really fucking cool" and, even though he's been out of his tree for so long it's been felled and turned into coffee tables, he's not far wrong this time. 'Mindmay' is a blistering powerchord pop song of the kind we now expect from the band, but the accompanying b- sides are testimony to a changing direction influenced by OK Computer. Pick of the bunch is 'Christmas On Mars' weaving a Yorke falsetto and hardcore guitar into a mini- epic. (JP)

Review above came from: here

Stony Sleep
A Slack Romance
Big Cat Records

Two albums in and it seems that Stony Sleep may very well have lost it.

A Slack Romance is by no means a terrible album - just a confusingly average one, where many of the tracks lose their identity and fail to make an impression; anyone who's ever heard a Sleeper LP will probably be familiar with this feeling.

The one stand out track, With The Clumsiness of A Borrowed Father, manages to momentarily claw Stony Sleep out of their indifferent and cramped little hole up into the realm of a half-decent and memorable song, but it's soon back to more of the same old stuff as soon as it's finished. If only this group could write more songs in this vein then they may stand a chance of more than an apathetic shrug.

Stony Sleep have made this album to their own rules, it seems. Had A Slack Romance been 20 minutes shorter then it may have been a different story, but a whole hour's worth of decidedly average songs will only really appeal to die-hard fans.

Good luck with the next album.

I have lost the link for where the following reviews came from

Ben Smith - Vocals / Guitar
Christian Smith - Drums
Lee Citron - Bass

'I'm not too sure how we're changing but we are' Ben Smith
Stony Sleep first emerged on to the scene in '96 with a fistful of boisterous intelligently written singles. Taking their name from the Yeats' poem, 'The Second Coming', Stony Sleep's own poetic lyrics and surreal take on messed up rock soon won them admiration from the likes of John Peel (two sessions under their belt in a year) and Ozzy Osbourne.

Since the release of their Truman Capote inspired album, 'Music for Chameleons', Ben and Christian have added new bass player, Lee, toured the UK, honed their live sound and penned a new album. Ben's love of animals encouraged him to become an activist for PETA ( People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and some of the songs on their latest album 'A Slack Romance (released Spring 1999) reflect his feelings on vegetarianism and animal rights. The album is a relentless charge of surrealism, texture and dynamics. It's a willingness to experiment, a new ambition.

'A Slack Romance' is a weightier affair than its predecessors; a full flowering of the seeds sown at their live shows. The progressive atmosphere throughout the album is the perfect soundtrack to Stony Sleep's dream diaries and day mares - narcotic, brutal but beautiful. Says Ben, 'If there is a theme, it would have to be of trying to invoke images and thought, both fantastic and realistic...the order of the songs like a chronological sorting of memories, is a build up of a long languorous mood.

The juxtaposition of darkness and light is evident here, driving guitars bent over muscular basslines and demented drums give way to melancholy and calm...and then begin again.

A Slack Romance
Stony Sleep
Released:
Label: Big Cat

Here's a good idea! Why don't we start our songs off slowly and quietly, and then just when nobody's expecting it, burst into loud thrashing guitar noises? Why? Because it's been done a million times before, because it no longer surprises people and it's a bit bloody much when you do it on every single track! No doubt this will go down well in heavy metal circles but then all that head-banging is bound to have an adverse affect.