Delta Sleep – Spring Island | Album Review
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Growing up in Sacramento, California, I had a lot of friends in high school who were really into math rock. For some reason, there’s always been a vibrant scene there, and to this day, I still don’t really know why. My buddies were all into bands like Dance Gavin Dance, Tera Melos, and Hella. I was still deep into my Riffs Only Phase (think Metallica, Mastodon, Queens of the Stone Age), so, to me, this all sounded like repetitive noise. I just didn’t get the appeal. I felt like my dudes were too concerned with time signatures and looping pedals when they should be emphasizing the emotional side of virtuosity.
It wasn’t until I was in college that I found some math rock that felt made for me. I stumbled onto Battles while listening to my campus radio station (shout-out KSMC). The DJ played “Atlas,” and I was floored. My perspective shifted as I realized that math rock bands are still rock bands, but bands that like to do their rocking in a, well… mathy way. Real deep eighteen-year-old thoughts, I know, but are you gonna look at me and tell me that I'm wrong? Battles allowed me to dive back into the genre with a new appreciation and understanding of what I did and didn't like. I found that bands who tend to craft noodly riffs based on repetition weren’t really my thing, and what I was really looking for were bands making big choruses.
For me, Delta Sleep are the latter of these two points of view. You’re just as likely to see the Brighton cosiners on the bill for ArcTanGent as you are The Fest. The band’s approach to math rock is imbued with splashes of big tent indie, emo, and even some post-rock. Their new album Spring Island places a heavy emphasis on the bombastic indie rock portion of Delta Sleep’s DNA. These are songs meant to be shouted at the top of your lungs in the midst of a bunch of other sweaty people.
Lead single, “The Detail,” utilizes tried and true start-stops to build up to a massive post-rock catharsis. “Planet Fantastic” is a charming and gentle ballad of sorts that ends with the band cutting out while a chorus of friends sings the refrain one last time, presumably circled around the mic, arms interlocked over each other’s shoulders. “The Softest Touch” features a midsection that belies the song’s title. My personal favorite, “Old Soul,” is a rowdy banger that features a bending guitar line reminiscent of Coldplay’s “Yellow.”
Lyrically, much of Spring Island is concerned with anxiety and dread sparked by climate change. On “Spun,” frontperson Devin Yüceil sings about his fears for the natural world and how the seeming inability to do anything about them is driving him mad. Meanwhile, “Forest Fire” shrouds a love song with the terror of fire season, and “The Softest Touch” laments that global warming will melt the polar ice caps while we’re all convincing ourselves that we are making a difference. The group demonstrates Yüceil’s justified paranoia with a precise frenzy that a band can only be achieved through years of collaboration.
Spring Island is an impressive achievement. It’s intelligent, but it’s not soulless. It’s technical, but it also rips. I’m thankful that my friends never stopped preaching the gospel of math rock because I would not have found Delta Sleep without them.
Connor lives in San Francisco with his partner and their cat and dog, Toni and Hachi. Connor is a student at San Francisco State University and is working toward becoming a community college professor. When he isn’t listening to music or writing about killer riffs, Connor is obsessing over coffee and sandwiches.
