By Ryan Smith

It is my distinct pleasure to present to you the latest music video from Sleepstream, a Greek instrumental rock sextet based out of Thessaloniki. Formed in 2008 and with two full-length albums under their belts, Sleepstream are one hell of a musical force to be reckoned with. From what is seen here, the band set themselves apart from a lot of other experimental hard rock bands by focusing less on songs with bombastic structures, shredding, and heavy posturing, and more on atmosphere and solid, driving melodies.

This latest track, “Cirrus Formed Antennae,” hails from the band’s second album, They Flew In Censored Skies, released this past March. The whopping nine minute track begins ominously with rumbling bass and majestic cello laying the groundwork for a very elegant and gloomy violin piece. The track switches over quickly to a clean, guitar-led mood piece with the strings milling about in the background. Chugging, hard rock guitar eventually lifts the tune up into enthrallingly epic climbs, until the four-minute mark when the strings take centre stage for a moment and play off of some incredibly atmospheric and sombre clean guitar work.

Sleepstream

The band climbs back up into the swing of things before the tune dramatically shifts into a new movement which incorporates jarringly aggressive guitar and cello riffing. Continuing the back and forth game, the band enters yet another sombre dream movement lead by haunting cello and trippy guitar chord work. An epic build up leads us to the track’s thrilling coda, which features all of the players belting out heaps of moving, driving sound that becomes a breath-taking wall of heavy-duty atmosphere. The energetic video is shot in stunning black and white and captures and charged performance and a band simply loving what they do.

If you like thick, beautifully constructed, subtly developing instrumental tunes, head over to Sleepstream’s Bandcamp page and check out the full-length album They Flew In Censored Skies, which includes “Cirrus Formed Antennae,” along with eight other powerfully atmospheric compositions.

RYAN SMITH spends a great deal of his time under troll bridges shaking his fist and hollering obscenities at the mainstream, but occasionally finds himself on the side of a pop act that the underground has disowned. A schizoid fan for the 21st century? Although he has a diverse musical taste that runs the gamut from black metal to country to most forms of jazz, Ryan’s first love will always be progressive music.