Single Slam – Haunt Me by While She Sleeps (So What?)

Another Christmas present from a GBHBL favourite! While She Sleeps have gifted us a second single from their new album, So What?. This song is called Haunt Me.

The Sheffield based metalcore band are one we watch intently thanks to their creative and inspiring albums and punishing live performances. We love their debut full length masterpiece, This is the Six. Their follow up, Brainwashed is brilliant and their crowd funded 3rd album, You Are We isn’t far off either. Live, they are phenomenal too, bringing cracking tunes and high energy to every second of every show. Read more on this by following the links but in short, any new While She Sleeps release raises the excitement levels here.

While She Sleeps are a 5 piece with vocals led by Lawrence Taylor (Loz). Mat Welsh is on rhythm guitar and clean vocals while Sean Long is on lead guitar and backing vocals. On bass and more backing vocals is Aaran McKenzie while Adam Savage is on the drums.

So What?, will be the 4th full length from the band and is due for release on the 1st of March via their own Sleeps Brothers brand but with Search and Destroy and Spinefarm involvement. Haunt Me is the second single released from it so far. The first was called Anti-Social and you can read our thoughts on it here. It is a good song, but didn’t blow me away. I am hoping for a bit more from Haunt Me. Let’s see if we get it.

Haunt Me is just over 4 and a half minutes in length and I definitely prefer it to the first single, Anti-Social. It starts with a decent guitar melody before vocals, part shouted, part sung, come in over the top. Drums come in and add a bit more depth to the sound as the music builds. You can’t help but feel it is building up into something big and heavy but it doesn’t. Instead it fades to a cleanly sung line over a gentle melody. I must admit that while it sounds nice, it wasn’t what I hoped for. Once it comes back after the soft section there is finally a bit of real meat with crushing drum blasts and a rhythmic riff that will be welcomed in the pit.

Again though, as seems to be the way with modern While She Sleeps, the heaviness soon subsides left with cleanly sung vocals over a faded riff and louder drum beat. It isn’t a complaint, per se. The vocals are great, sung well and with importantly poignant lyrics but they definitely appear to favour melody and harmony over force and power these days. The verse builds in speed a little before breaking into the chorus which is cleanly sung over a great sounding melodic guitar. It is a catchy chorus too which is great.

The second verse ends into a section that pitches clean vocals against uncleans with a gloriously quick drum section. The rough vocals continue into a section that would force the most stubborn of us to bang our heads. The pace, ferocity and power is all there with excellent drums at the forefront. As that section ends, the powder keg refuses to erupt and we head back to gentle melody and clean singing. The vocals again sound great, echoed and sung in gang vocal style. The drums kick in and the catchy chorus gets repeated over the higher toned lead guitar line.

I hate to say it though, again, it doesn’t blow me away. It is very good. I really do like it a lot. The drums stand out, the singing is amazingly harmonic, the lead guitar is special, the lyrics are great and the chorus is so catchy. So what don’t I like? Honestly it is hard to put my finger on it. I do wish there was a bit more of the heavier vocals on here and the moments of heavy riffing are great but fleeting. It is kind of frustrating how they seem to tease a breakdown in songs now with building music. Like they are going to let loose but constantly pull back to clean singing and/or melody.

Haunt Me is clever, well played and sung and extremely catchy but just lacks some of the fire of their earlier years. That may be them, or it may just be the cleaner production. Still, there is enough coming from the new album, So What? so far to have me interested so I look forward to what comes next.

You can grab Haunt Me on all the usual streaming platforms, like Apple Music and Spotify now. Preorder your copy of So What? at the band’s website, here. Keep up to date with the band and the new album at their website, on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.