Elvis Perkins - While You Were Sleeping (XL)
4/5
By: Michael Cragg
While some singer songwriters bemoan their lives whilst sitting atop a pile of cash surrounded by blondes in Ibiza (that's you Mr Blunt), Elvis Perkins could imbue his shopping list with melancholia were he to sing it aloud. And that's before you learn of the tragedies that have arrived along the way. Elvis Perkins is the son of actor Anthony Perkins, most famous for his role as Norman Bates in Psycho, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1992. Then nine years later, Perkins' mother was flying from Boston when the plane she was in was high jacked by terrorists and flown into the World Trade Centre. It's this tragedy that lingers throughout Perkins' debut album, 'Ash Wednesday', which features songs written before and after the events of September 11th.
'While You Were Sleeping' twists and turns through its six minutes, struggling free from its acoustic openings before marching drums, double bass, subtle strings and, finally, soaring trumpets lift the song to a place you wouldn't have expected at the start. In amongst the building cacophony, Perkins' voice keeps constant control, the sound of a man riddled with emotion but with a certain stoic reluctance to let things get out of hand. Lyrically, it takes in everything from religion to impending Armageddon and of course death lingers too close at hand: "Were you falling?/ Were you flying?/ Were you calling out?/ Or were you dying?"
As with the album as a whole, 'While You Were Sleeping' can take a number of listens before it really seeps beneath the skin, but once it does its hard to shake. More people need to hear Elvis Perkins' music, not because he deserves sympathy, but because he has made a brilliant debut album and 'While You Were Sleeping' is testament to that fact.
Watch a live video of 'While You Were Sleeping' HERE.
Artists in this article: Elvis Perkins
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment