It’d been a long while since I last saw The Sleepers, too long in fact  – so last week I went to watch them at Mercury (against an intriguing, projected backdrop), along with Black Moscow and Wild Eastern Arches.

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of Wild Eastern Arches lately, and though I’m warming to them, my opinion’s remained largely unchanged. Although, the song they introduced as being ‘new’ had a really nice part in it, so nice in fact that I thought that whole track was great.

I generally prefer their more energetic stuff near the end of the set to the laid-back stuff they open with, so I think if they continue in that direction (like they have with the aforementioned new track) I’ll start getting excited about them…

My most recent memory of Black Moscow was not a particularly happy one – I saw them at Zula last year and things were pretty disastrous, culminating in the power cutting out during their second song. Technical issues aside, I wasn’t mad about them at the time but, as I didn’t stay for their whole performance, thought I’d give them a proper chance at Mercury.

Musically I thought they weren’t bad, but the vocals let them down. The crowd waned a bit but seemed pretty enthusiastic, a sentiment I confess I couldn’t share – I didn’t stick around for their whole set this time either.

The Sleepers kicked off with a track I didn’t recognise, which could’ve been because it was new or because it was a reworking of an older track. The latter was to occur a bit throughout the set, which was good – rearranging the older material for (still relatively newish vocalist) Daniel Botha’s voice and singing style definitely made their performance feel more cohesive.

They also played ‘something different’ in the form of a riff-heavy instrumental, that was indeed different and really cool.  Also different was their uniform of white shirts and jeans, which I assume was chosen with the backdrop in mind. Though you can’t really tell from my photos (because it was hard to shoot and came and went), imagery of oil droplets in various colours and patterns was projected onto the band and the stage which, along with some moody lighting, added a really nice psychedelic visual element to the performance.

I always enjoy watching The Sleepers, and realised this anew seeing them at Mercury; I really hope they release some new material soon…

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The Sleepers   |   Black Moscow  |   Wild Eastern Arches