Artist: Sleeping With Sirens
Track: “Low”
Album: Feel

There are probably a hundred different ways to guide your career in music, but after you find initial success with a certain sound the question generally turns to whether or not to change. More of the same can be a good thing, but everyone loves something new, so what is an artist to do? If the lead single off Sleeping With Sirens’ new album is any sign of how they’ve chosen to guide their career, the answer seems to be finding a middle ground that makes everyone happy.

“Low” is the first song to be released by Sleeping With Sirens since their one-off zombie song dropped around Halloween last year. Beyond that, it’s the first proper release since the ever-popular If You Were A Movie, This Would Be Your Soundtrack EP. In all that time it seems the only thing Sleeping With Sirens have worked on as far as progressing their sound is concerned is to simply tighten the bolts on an already well-running ship. “Low” is perfectly acceptable alternative rock with a leaning towards teens likely to attend Warped Tour and a catchy, repetitious hook element that live audiences will eat up. It works perfectly as a sonic successor to Let’s Cheers To This, with a high-gloss wall of sound backing vocalist Kellin Quinn’s signature wail-laden croon detailing the emotional turmoil involved in loving someone who makes you feel, well, “low.” The lyrics are as strong as any from the band, and thematically speaking it’s as fitting for the band’s discography as any song could hope to be, but whether or not “as good as the rest” is good enough for you as a listener is an entirely different story.

Just as there are a hundred ways to guide a career, there are hundreds (more like millions) of ways to market a new album. Some artists choose to show you how they’ve changed up front so that your initial experience with the full album is not as shocking to the system, but others opt to pay it safe and release a song more fitting with everything that has preceded it. “Low” is very much the latter of those two, or at least I hope so, and it’s a perfectly satisfactory song to add to the Sleeping With Sirens catalog. That said, it’s a bit disappointing to hear the band delivering such a familiar (dare I say “safe”) sound three albums in. The acoustic EP proved they can write songs outside of straightforward alt-rock, so I’m remain hopeful there is something more awaiting us on Feel. Until then, “Low” will do just fine.

Review written by: James Shotwell

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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