sHeavy play wonderfully flowing, groovy stoner rock (Yeah, I know some people don't like that term, but it is the perfect kind of music to chill and smoke pot to.)  sHeavy sound like Sabbath (The title track Electric Sleep  is so Sabbathy it's scary and Oracle's introductory chords sound very similar to those of  Under the Sun.)  and Kyuss.  sHeavy's record company claim that their lead singer sounds "more like Ozzy Osbourne than Ozzy Osbourne", although sHeavy do seem to like to filter his voice to make it even more striking.  The texture of guitars and bass is complex enough to hold interest without marring the flow of the music.  You can't just sit still while listening to this album; you have to tap your toe, swing your head from side to side, or just get up and dance.

As their name suggests, sHeavy are heavy, but not, I may add, in an agressive way.   Their vibe is powerful and deep.  The lyrics fit in with this mood; they're full of emotion, appreciation of love and beauty, and concern for a modern technological society turning mechanical and unfeeling.  The ballads Velvet and Savannah are sure to make many bands insanely jealous with their beauty and depth of emotion.  The sweet sorrow of Savannah is balanced by the bouncy wah-wah-ness of songs like Saving Me and Born in a Daze, and the doominess of Oracle. 

All in all, this is a cool album.  If you appreciate talented bands with a good range of emotion, get this, pop it in your CD player, and get down and groove.   Flares are optional.

This is very electronic industrial with a strong eighties feel (the intro to the second track, Street, reminds me of  the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams) and pseudo-mechanical filtered vocals.  I'm reminded of the little chip-sound tunes of the computer games of my childhood.  They were cute, though.  This isn't.

Quite frankly my dear, this leaves me cold.  It's bare, bleak, mechanical and soulless.  To me, it seeems to express the lack of meaning and connection people feel living in the modern unnatural world of cities.  Incredibly cyber-punk.  I think this is illustrated by the Giger-esque cover  with the female figure bound to her seat and seemingly made of the same grey artificial substance as it.  As you listen to this, you can feel the blue of the sky disappearing as tall grey skyscrapers grow up around you and block out the light.

The dark lyrics are delivered by an expressionless unfeeling voice and are devoid of any hope of ever climbing out of a pit of unending misery.  There's no fragile beauty in this darkness.  It's missing any of the quirky wry slightly grisly humour of  a lot of dark  music and those who appreciate it.

Strangely enough, despite being so bleak and despairing, this is dance music.  I can easily imagine being dragged up to dance to this in a club.   People do enjoy this sort of thing in their own perverse kind of way.  I'm not sure I want to, though, because that would mean that I can relate to this kind of emptiness.

To make me identify with it, this album needs a little humanity added to its numbness.  I'm still an animal, not a machine yet.  I still feel.

This is probably not the best thing to listen to when depressed -- it'll encourage you to mope instead of getting on and dealing with things.  It's positively unhealthy.  If you listen to this, hide the razorblades.  You'll love this album if you enjoy being made utterly miserable, you masochist.  The perfect scene to listen to this would be in a damp little bedsit in the inner city, while you're nursing a nasty hangover and regretting your pathetic life (Am I turning you masochists on?).   I'll just pass myself.  I have no need of further depression.

I have an incredible urge to go and hug a tree or something (maybe I'll become a hippy -- well, maybe that's taking things a bit far).

OK, so in a club this would be great to get up and mosh to, but that's not the point. 'Loco' was always good for a mosh, but that didn't make CC a good band. I feel really sorry for Max to be honest, unless of course he enjoys being a follower, but I always thought (hoped) he was forward thinking enough come up with his own music. Maybe I was wrong. And those little bits that probably are original certainly aren't a patch on what Sepultura came up with. Perhaps I'm being a little unfair, there are quite a lot of weird bits on offer that maybe wouldn't be found elsewhere, but that's not enough. I think the vocals are the weakest part, which is really annoying cos he can be an excellent singer if he has the right material. In fact I find it hard to believe I'm saying this, but I'm not even sure if I'm going to buy the album.

Perhaps the one saving grace of this single is the Discharge cover "Ain't No Feeble Bastard", but again, I can't help but feel the Seps could have done so much better. Stick with them or Nailbomb.

'Dry' shows  they can clearly write a good tune and coordinate well with each other, and it has a good mix between heavy aggression and southern groove. If I'm hearing right, there's also a tamborine in use during the chorus, which works really well. 'Rising' is also great, similar comments to the first track though a bit heavier perhaps, and maybe more typical shouty hardcore vocals (in the first half at least).

I don't really know what else to say except that if you get a chance to see them live I'd certainly take it up (see Tour Dates). Fans of the band will no doubt love their new stuff, and I reckon they'll gain a lot more from this release.