I wouldn't have chosen to live in an age where guitar solos are considered uncool, or at least "dated". Nevertheless, here I am, 27 years old, listening mostly to 80's pop and rock, and idolizing a fictional metal band from a cartoon show (Metalocalypse) rather than having a true, long-haired, leather pants-wearing guitar god to call my hero.

Let's face it; Coldplay rules the day. These are hard times, people.

Fortunately, there are tiny little bands bubbling up in our hometowns that still want real arena rock. The kind for real arenas, where people were fed to lions. The kind that sounds like fire exploding in your chest, filled with nothing but monumental chord and time signature changes, lightning-fast riffs, and a drummer that might well be Thor. Or maybe an octopus.

Enter Sleepers Awake. Founded in circa 2006, the band has been playing the Columbus bar circuit heavily since. It is impressive how strong their songwriting is despite their young age. It is even more impressive that they can make the kind of music that they do and still do it so tastefully.

They seem hellbent on proving their countless skills to the listener, and they do so over and over again on their debut album, tentatively titled Priests of the Fire. The songs race along with feverish precision as if they are on a holy quest to create a mountain of perfect notes. The drumming of Chris Burnsides is awe-inspiring; from the moment the double-kick starts on "The Summoning", you know that you're in for a ride. His ability to keep up with the manic guitar work of Rob Bradley and Chris Thompson (and not seem like a showoff) is nothing short of astounding.

Upon first listen, however, you will be most likely to focus your attention upon the way the guitars and bass all play off one another like a symphony run through a fuzzbox. One can't help but feel that this is the only album of 2009 that Mozart would have liked. Rob's lead guitar parts seem to grow wings and flutter like a neon butterfly over a black ocean. At your very moment of rapture they will tear it away from you and give you a nightmare. Just before we are devoured, again it will change; the butterfly becomes confused and turns into a caterpillar, the drums rolling up and down his spine. Impossibly high notes and cascades of arpeggios become locked tightly in place by the irritatingly perfect bass playing of Joey Bradley. The fact that he and Rob are siblings may be a factor in their ability to acheive such a dumbfounding balance between unity and chaos.

The calm center of this storm is the voice of Chris Thompson. Even as he is attacked on all sides by a fury of guitar and drums all around him, he sings patiently and deliberately, as though refusing to be provoked. One word travels over a canyon of guitar plucks until you're guessing at the next one. This will continue until we do the screaming for him in our inability to keep it in any longer. Finally, as we raise our goblets of rock, just when we would have killed him otherwise, he unleashes like an opera singer, but sounds more like a knight leading his troops into battle.

"Hush, love, don't breathe / Soon, the beast will leave / At night, I'll weep," he bellows on closing track "Machines". Indeed, now is not the time for weeping. We have a war to fight against all that does not rock. These four are on the front lines.

In fact, the only real shortcomings of this album are also its strong suits: the music is so dense, so vibrant; the songs so packed full of brilliance, that it can be too much to ingest on your first listen. This is dangerous territory for any band in the "Age of the Single" we are living in. These songs demand the listener's full attention and definitely feel the best at a very high volume, not clicking through them on Facebook. Nevertheless, I think it would be hard for anyone to put this album on and not acknowledge the sheer talent the four of them are brimming with.

The weakest link overall is a good one to have: the mix. It is by no means a poorly mixed album, but if you know a lot about this stuff, you can tell that they didn't pay twenty thousand dollars to make it. This was a debut album on a budget. There are endless amounts of studio trickery that is done to make the rock albums we buy today sound immaculate. This can consist of anything from layering 20 guitar parts over certain sections to, yes, the dreaded Autotune. There is a noticeable lack of all of that here which I'm sure many will find to be one of the album's charms. There are moments, usually when Chris isn't singing, that I feel the guitars should have been moved more into the center of the field. A little more echo here or there would be nice. These are small gripes. The rest of the time it is, again, simply impressive how well the songs hold up by themselves in this naked environment. Many bands strive their entire careers and fall short of making albums with this kind of adrenaline and focus. Worse than that, most bands have no desire to make something so cared for and poured over. Besides, let's face it: ninety percent of the bands out there today couldn't come close to playing these songs no matter how hard they tried. (Guilty as charged.)

Priests of the Fire: An instant classic. I will own this album until I die and then possibly request being buried with it. A jaw-dropping mammoth of a starting point for one of the most promising rock bands to ever come from Columbus, Ohio. Maybe even Ohio. Maybe even to ever be in Ohio.


Sleepers Awake : Priests of the Fire

1. Intro
2. The Summoning
3. Won't Let Go
4. Gulag
5. The Ancient
6. The Colossus that Bestrode the World
7. Priests of the Fire
8. Machines


All songs are 320kbps lossless MP3.