For All Those Sleeping – Cross Your Fingers

With their full-length Fearless Records debut, Cross Your Fingers, For All Those Sleeping has created a stomachable cross of conventional pop-punk and throaty screamo.  As someone typically dismissive of the genre’s gimmicky stylistic shifts, I found myself surprised at how often the St. Cloud, Minnesota quartet reeled me in.  For the difference, look no further than the band’s pleasantly cool hooks.  The result: a pop-punk/screamo hybrid that keeps the teeth of the later, without ever sacrificing the fun of the former.

As becomes clear early on, For All Those Sleeping gets what many bands in this Hot Topic popularized genre largely miss.  As seen with opener “Outbreak Of Heartbreak,” the band understands that in order to combine genres, they can’t bounce back and forth, but need to mix both vocally and instrumentally.  In practice, this plays out with poppy falsetto vocals being layered onto ridged riffs, and gargled hardcore bursts being plunked onto sugary three-chord pop pieces, and everything in between.  In other words, their success can be found in the overlap – akin to the centre of a venn diagram.

To be sure, their pop punk know-how easily eclipses their hardcore self, coming across more along the lines of Vagrant Records alumni like Emanuel or Face To Face than with the typical Fearless crew. Taking Back Sunday might be a better example, but you likely get the point.

Another part of their success can likely be attributed to their appreciation for timeless punk trends.  For example, between moments of rough overlap and sugary hooks, “Never Leave Northfield” also features some mighty smooth melodic vocals layered over some classically steady drumming (think Pulley).  While not a primary feature to their sound, it’s certainly an important selling point to skeptics like myself.

But while the formula gets so much right, there’s also a little something missing – mainly a track by track sense of personality.  The album starts off promising – the first two aforementioned tracks stand up well enough – but then everything starts blending together.  Don’t get me wrong, the metal riffs, heart pumping breakdowns, and speedy harmonies remain just as competent throughout, but the sound saturates in sameness quite quickly.  In fact, there have been times where the album runs its course, reverts back to the first song, and I just didn’t notice.  Call me inattentive, but by about the halfway point, the final five tracks blur together, with each song offering little new.

So in the end, For All Those Sleeping gets the mechanics right, but flounders on compounding this success into something compelling.  Don’t get me wrong, Cross Your Fingers is a solid step for a band that might otherwise get caught in the mix, but there’s still a long road ahead, and plenty of room for working towards something fuller.