The Sleeves – The Sleeves – Album Review
by Killian Laher

The Sleeves are a side project of Jack Cooper and Tara Cunningham from Modern Nature, who joined for last year’s excellent The Heat Warps.  It’s very much in the vein of that album, though it’s even more stripped down, with no percussion or bass worth talking about. It’s a collection of songs played in what is best described as hushed tones.  The hesitant Come On Man starts things off, a downcast tune played on sparse electric guitar and Cooper and Cunningham’s almost whispered vocals.

The album is very much a mood piece, with the pair’s guitar playing wrapping itself around each other and around your brain on Empty Thoughts and Rip It Up.  Many of the songs consist of repeated words and phrases: “You, Now, Again” features those words repeated to hypnotic effect, while, musically, it evokes Television at their quietest.  Procedure does a similar job with its own title.

At times, it’s so sparse that it’s barely there.  Tin Foil is the ultimate impressionistic track, just some light “mmm mmmm mmm mmmm” accompanied by seemingly randomly picked guitar for 99 glorious seconds.  It’s short and understated, and if anything, it’s music for the soul.

Come On Man