WHILE SHE SLEEPS Announce fourth album ‘SO WHAT?’
Set for release via Sleeps Brothers/Spinefarm on 1st March, 2019
New single ‘Anti-Social’ out now with music video:
WHILE SHE SLEEPS have announced that their fourth studio album ‘SO WHAT?’ will be released on 1st March via their own Sleeps Brothers label. They’ve also revealed its first single, ‘Anti-Social’. An explosive, relentless four-minute anthem, it takes everything you know and love about While She Sleeps – clattering riffs, bruising breakdowns, snarling lyrics and big-ass singalongs – and sticks them in a blender. It’s punk, it’s heavy metal, it couldn’t be any other band but them, and yet it sounds unlike anything you’ve heard from them before. It’s the sound of While She Sleeps reborn. They’ve also announced a mammoth UK & European headline tour through February, culminating at The Roundhouse in London on the day the album drops. Support on the tour will come from Stray From The Path and Landmvrks plus further special guest tbc.
“We’ve let our hair down and we’ve got our bollocks out. I’m not fucking about. I’m not cutting corners. I’ve been writing like this will be my last album.”
Some bands play it safe when it comes to taking their next steps. But then, While She Sleeps have never been “some band”. The Sheffield quintet have made a career out of confounding expectations, be it through their dizzying blend of crushing metal, guttural hardcore and arena-worthy hooks, or the way they’ve carried themselves over an explosive, 13-year career. Their last album, 2017’s ‘You Are We,’ was a testament to the power of self-belief and determination; crowdfunded and released on the band’s own Sleeps Brothers label, it earned them award nominations from the likes of Metal Hammer and a Best Album win at the Heavy Music Awards, as well as landing them in the top ten of the UK album charts. Now, they look to build on that success with the release of fourth studio album: ‘SO WHAT?’
“You Are We got us to this special position, and it’s given us a platform,” continues guitarist Sean Long. “For us, it’s like, ‘What can we do to really stick this in people’s faces? What can we put out there that we’re buzzing off?’ I don’t want to be following everyone else; I want people to follow us.”
Recorded with producer Carl Bown at the band’s self-built studio Sleeps Audio, ‘SO WHAT?’ promises to be another defiant step forwards. Set for release on Sleeps Brothers in collaboration with metal mega-label Spinefarm, this new record sees While She Sleeps working with a major label again for the first time since 2015’s ‘Brainwashed’, and the band are at pains to point out that this won’t mean there’ll be any compromise in their vision. “We got approached immediately by a bunch of labels, but we turned around to all of them and said, ‘The only way we’re going to do anything is if you let us release it on Sleeps Brothers, but you house that on your train, and we make the decisions behind everything,” Mat explains. “I fucking loved releasing You Are We ourselves, but at the same time, I played more on my laptop than I did on my guitar for the whole campaign. This release is a partnership between Sleeps Brothers and Spinefarm, but no one is breathing down our necks about the record we’re making or the singles we’re putting out.”
With a bigger platform to get their music into the world and a firestorm of a first single released, 2019 is shaping up to be the year of While She Sleeps. For a band that have spent over a decade redefining modern metal, it seems the best is yet to come.
2019 HEADLINE TOUR DATES:
Fri 01 Feb France Paris Trabendo
Sat 02 Feb Netherlands Amsterdam Melkweg
Sun 03 Feb Germany Hamburg Markthalle
Tue 05 Feb Germany Munster Skaters Palace
Thu 07 Feb Germany Leipzig Täubchenthal
Fri 08 Feb Germany Berlin Huxleys
Sat 09 Feb Poland Warsaw Proxima
Mon 11 Feb Poland Krakow ZetPeTe
Tue 12 Feb Czech RepublicPrague Lucerna Music Bar
Wed 13 Feb Germany Nuremberg Hirsch
Fri 15 Feb Germany Frankfurt Batschkapp
Sat 16 Feb Switzerland Aarau Kiff
Sun 17 Feb Italy Bologna Zona Roveri
Tue 19 Feb Germany Munich Technikum
Wed 20 Feb Austria Vienna Flex
Fri 22 Feb Germany Stuttgart LKA Longhorn
Sat 23 Feb Germany Cologne Essigfabrik
Sun 24 Feb Belgium Antwerp Zappa
Tue 26 Feb England Nottingham Rock City
Wed 27 Feb Scotland Glasgow 02 ABC
Thu 28 Feb England Leeds Beckett SU
Fri 01 Mar England London Roundhouse
WHILE SHE SLEEPS ARE:
Lawrence Taylor – Vocals | Sean Long – Guitar | Mat Welsh – Guitar / Vocals
Aaran Mckenzie – Bass | Adam Savage – Drums