Sometimes you just need a little pick-me-up from the stresses of daily life from someone who gets it. That’s what the new Sleeping With Sirens album is; a friend when you’re in need of a helping hand. The arc that they’ve followed over the last two records is completed with ‘An End In Itself’ and while the twelve songs are imbued with the same energy that catapulted them into the mainstream a decade and a half ago, it’s more than that; ’An End In Itself’ is rooted in solidarity and understanding of the struggles of the everyday and contains the power to inspire you to push on through.
“Don’t give up, don’t let it bury you,” implores Kellin Quinn as the gritty title track opens the album, twisting from empty chords into screaming, flammable choruses ripe with optimism amid the chaos. The cry for comfort extends into ‘Forever/Always’, a surprisingly tender track from Sirens but one which beams with a love for the human connection. If anything, that’s what ‘An End In Itself’ is all about: the joy of finding solidarity in the people around you. ‘God In My Head’ feels like a rush of realisation that you can always rely on yourself, albeit with atmospheric layered drop-downs to add a touch of spookiness, and ‘Need You Here’ feels destined to become a metalled’s wedding song this summer with its gorgeous blend of solos and romantic chemistry. However, it’s ‘Left On Repeat’ which brings the most vulnerable moment on the album, one that reaches out to us and invites us to share the connection which Sleeping With Sirens celebrate.
There’s been a magnetic shift in Sleeping With Sirens’ sound since 2022’s ‘Complete Collapse’; the heaviness on tracks like ‘Paralyzed’ feels so much more dense than we remember, and the pop opening to ‘House of Matches’ feels like something that could be from a chart-topping crooner. The moments where the band manage to compress those two sides into one, such as the atmospheric singalong future classic ‘Waiting For You’, are the points where ‘An End In Itself’ truly shines.
‘PTSD’, probably the heaviest track we’re dealing with, is gorgeously venting, but immediately followed with the moody, slow crashing of ‘Looking Back At Me’. Both sides that we experience are brilliant, of course, but both offer different paths to the future for Sleeping With Sirens. Is this a clue that we’re sliding towards an emotional pop sound, or that they’ll throw all caution to the wind and pack their next record with deep and intensive chug? At this point, all speculation is irrelevant as we’re barely letting ‘An End In Itself’ sink in, but with the sound we love splitting into intriguing shards, anything could be possible.
‘An End In Itself’ represents that rare beast of a record that will delight the fanbase and pull in new fans thanks to the universal comfort that slamming it out with a bunch of strangers can bring. There’s enough heaviness lurking in there to keep us satisfied, but the lightness makes it accessible for the newcomers. It might just be the album that propels them even further into the stratosphere, or it might be a crossroads to a new era now their three-album saga has reached its conclusion. We’re left with more questions, but we have to trust the process. After all, if Sleeping With Sirens keep making albums of this quality, the answers will reveal themselves in no time.
KATE ALLVEY