My Own Dead Love by Sleepersound
My Own Dead Love, the long-awaited third album from Milwaukee’s critically acclaimed Sleepersound, is an ideal soundtrack for our troubled times. While the band claims the record tells a love story, it also conveys the ravages of mental illness (“Tread Down”), the fear of abandonment (“Embers”) and the pursuit of redemption (“Certain Beasts”). Progressive? Experimental? Shoegaze? Dream pop? Post rock? Who knows and who cares.
With influences ranging from Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed! You Black Emperor and The Cure to Chopin, Mogwai and Tinariwen, Sleepersound’s elaborate, gauzy sound blankets you in expansive darkness but still allows for glimpses of glimmering light. The band recorded this album as a quartet, but Kenny Buesing has since left the band—rendering Sleepersound a trio, at least for now. Regardless, and even at this early point in 2025, My Own Dead Love is bound to be one of the most listenable, most absorbing and most miserable records you’ll hear come out of Milwaukee this year.
My Own Dead Love drops March 14, and Sleepersound’s first stop on its six-date tour will be Saturday, March 1, at the Cactus Club.
