Sleep of Reason - Building 27 (1987, Top)

Every year around this time I share one (or two) "lost" albums from the twentieth century that I find exemplary, relatively speaking.  I do my best, but in reality I have a backlog of records in waiting to be listened to, or listened to in full.  You'd think with all the overtime I've clocked in this year I would have finally gotten caught up, but to the contrary.  

I'd been putting off playing Sleep of Reason's Building 27, even at a cursory level.  This wasn't completely by design, but on some subconscious level maybe I was waiting to uncork this like a bottle of fine wine.  Upon finally diving in I largely encountered what I anticipated based on a number of factors, namely album graphics, band member photos, and even song titles.  There were few if any surprises when I started to ween myself on SoR's collegiate indie rock - primarily guitar driven, mid-tempo, four-minute setups with intelligent, albeit not-too-erudite subject matter. In a nutshell, not quite a revelation, but far from a disappointment. 

Bearing a contact address on the album jacket pointing to the unfamiliar locale of Vienna, VA, this not-so sleepy quartet just so happened to foreshadow the m.o. of aggregations like the Ocean Blue, and to a lesser extent suggested a modest allegiance to their Canuck neighbors to the north, the Grapes of Wrath.  In fact, Building 27 doesn't manage to construct much of anything out of whole cloth, but the band possess too much competence for that to factor as a detriment.  SoR do however stumble a few times during the middle portion of this record, with less than memorable results.  Fortunately, plenty of the more alluring numbers, including "That's a Nice Thought," "Intolerance," and the propulsive "Maybe I Was Wrong," go a long way in keeping this ship upright.  If anything else, SoR are archetypical of the left-of-the-dial framework that Wilfully Obscure, writ large, strives to expose and propagate - and perhaps for that reason alone I'm enthusiastic to share it.  There's not much information to be on these guys, so if any of you can provide more deets on Sleep of Reason, feel free to fire away in the comments.

01. That's a Nice Thought

02. Intolerance

03. Once Again

04. Maybe I Was Wrong

05. Right Through Me

06. Bells

07. Time To

08. Lay Back

09. Not Tho' the Sailor Knew

MP3  or  FLAC