Radio Exile | Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound – When Sweet Sleep Returned Review

Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound – When Sweet Sleep Returned Review

By K Sawyer Paul April 9, 2009 Post a comment | Email the author

There’s something to be said for the legalization of recreational drugs, and though nobody will admit it, that something almost always everything to do with enjoying psychedelic rock music. Can it really be that much of a coincidence that the prevalence of Pink Floyd-inspired era of overlong synth solos, incomprehensible lyrics, twenty-minute “jams” and trippy concert posters occurred at the same time when everyone under the age of 30 was hopped up on illegal substances?

I have two insignificant questions about psychedelic rock: Is something good if the majority of its fans are rarely sober? If so, what does that say about the sober music critic, who prefers to have a clean head when doing their job and thus has no idea how to approach this genre?

Oh, I suppose I could go out to my local corner supplier and pick up some shrooms to do the job proper, but then you wouldn’t be getting 500 words out of me, would you? No, you’d be getting something along the lines of “Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound’s AWESOME MAN. It…ROCKS, you know?” And I don’t think anyone wants that.

When Sweet Sleep Returned is the Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound’s [MySpace] third album, and I have to assume the last two fell in line with the same trajectory of aping the piss-break moments of every Grateful Dead show; not one line on this record sticks out, and not one song comes across as any more or less memorable. But this band is clearly not about recording memorable songs so much as creating a mood, and for that they’ve succeeded. Listening to this record made me feel like I was in the opening scene of “At Home At The End of The World,” a somewhat bored kid listening to rock records in my room while I got high and tried to forget about my completely standard mid-west upbringing. Assemble Head at Sunburst Sound craft albums in a way that scream “LP”, making the entire album a singular emotional journey, and I came out of it feeling like I had definitely been on a ride. The ride itself had been slow, featured few turns or surprises, but ricketed along the way a nice familiar roller coaster from your parent’s era tends to.

The problem with When Sweet Sleep Returned is that it doesn’t make me feel anything different for classic rock; it isn’t annotating anything so much as citing. They could have very well existed in that time frame and nobody would have noticed the difference (with the exception of more crackles). But Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound doesn’t actually make me want to revisit classic rock, because there’s actually very little stopping me from revisiting it with the actual bands from the actual time. It wasn’t that long ago, really, and everything was so well preserved that I can easily digest a legitimate bootleg anytime I want. Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of bands out there that lift direct styles from previous eras, but they often imbue it with postmodern self awareness. When Sweet Sleep Returned sounds completely genuine, and it could be the sobriety or it could be MTV ruining my brain, but genuine nostalgia just doesn’t sell anymore.

[mp3] Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound – “The Slumbering Ones”
[mp3] Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound – “Clive and Lyre”