SLEEPING WITH SIRENS ‘An Ending In Itself’

SLEEPING WITH SIRENS
An Ending In Itself
Rise Records

SLEEPING WITH SIRENS is not a band that needs to introduce itself. Though it’s a band that even I am older than, they’ve cemented themselves into the emo and rock culture of the past two decades near seamlessly, and if you know emo music, you know SLEEPING WITH SIRENS; Kellin Quinn is an extremely unique vocalist and notable frontman who knows how to put what he knows to use, in an always-refreshing mix of old school meets new.

And what I’m referring to is exactly what ‘An Ending In Itself’ does: it does not bother to introduce itself. The title track of the same name opens with no soft opener and no slack cut, but it’s immediately clear what the narrative behind the album is when Quinn sings out “don’t let it bury you” or “there’s a happy ending.” There’s a lot to say and even more that goes unsaid, but it’s something you’ll need to work for. Personally, I quite like the idea of expectations being subverted in even the first few moments of “An Ending In Itself,” and I think there’s a lot of irony in the first song of the album being an ending of sorts.

Quinn makes it known where this album is going right when he starts singing, and “Forever/Always” as well as “God In My Head” affirm this. “Forever/Always” opens with a very old school riff that I caught as soon as I first heard it, and this is when it became clear to me that ‘An Ending In Itself’ is very concerned with the extremes of people and situations—forever,
obviously, but also the idea of insurmountable challenges, hopelessness and unkillable willpower, or perhaps the infinite ocean and a person’s primal desire to cross it.

This is emo music, of course, and I think SLEEPING WITH SIRENS is very much a product of its time. Quinn’s clearer vocals are very pleasant to me and I always find them refreshing, but I definitely think “Need You Here” is the low point of ‘An Ending In Itself’ and that, like most music in its genre, can be unsubtle and sort of clumsy with its lyricism. These are certainly not bad songs, I think this would be disingenuous to say, but the early bits of the album dip in quality noticeably. What I appreciate in “Need You Here” most, however, is an absolutely gorgeous showcase of Quinn’s unnaturally high tenor range and the sheer amount he can really do with his vocals.

“Left On Repeat” and “House Of Matches,” though, pick back up just like that. They reinforce the idea that SLEEPING WITH SIRENS has been pushing this whole album thus far, with lines like “I’ve still got some time left” and the recognition that he, as someone with such influence, has a lot of power to uplift the people around him. It takes a lot of power to call this where he sees it, especially for oneself, and to step into this responsibility that people have for each other.

With “Process,” we get to see this commitment, too—more specifically, a commitment to persistence. The whole song is an ode to resilience and says, over and over again, that sometimes it really does just take falling to get back up and to figure things out. It’s a sentiment all people can sympathize with, especially older generations, and it’s very nice to see an acknowledgement of suffering and the urge to keep going in a genre that is built on misery.

The ending of this album hammers this home. ‘An Ending In Itself’ is very concerned with the idea of insurmountability and the real effort that has to be put in to overcome things that seem impossible. We as a people are, reasonably, terrified of the idea that we may fall and that we may never be able to claw ourselves out of the hole we’ve fallen into. Quinn is not a stranger to this. He urges you, me, himself, anybody who listens, to understand that life is ultimately just a story that we have to tell. It is a story that can only be told once, that may never be properly heard, that nobody may want to listen to; it is a story that we have to tell nonetheless.

This sort of hope in emo music is just not typical of the genre. It is invigorating. “Storm Clouds” closes out the album with a throwback to old school SLEEPING WITH SIRENS in sound combined with the newfound reverie and determination to dream and live largely that ‘An Ending In Itself’ has spent the past forty-five minutes trying to convince you is real and within reach. It is only fitting that the closing line of ‘An Ending In Itself’ is “but for now, it’s fine.”

A lot of things are going to be difficult, and that’s just how life tends to go. SLEEPING WITH SIRENS encourages you to actualize what you want for yourself in life regardless, and assures you that the difficult things in life are the ones most worth doing.

3.5 Out Of 5.0