GROOVE ART FEATURE

Virginia post-rock wizard The Sleeping Cliffs is one of the most prolific, and most original, projects on our radar. Coming on the heels of two gorgeous EPs, Business is the first full-length since the mind-blowing 2024 release of The Dredges. As we’ve come to expect from Todd Glidewell, the multi-instrumentalist mastermind behind this project, the record is a gorgeous tour through his musical mind. Glidewell uses his guitars in a way that belies his competence as a drummer - at times their effect is more percussion than strings, peppering the soundscape with precision fire. At other moments, they seem to be singing. The drums, in turn, serve to propel the songs forward, but equally as often they break the momentum and cast a lyricism into the mix that knocks us for a loop. The sound here is huge, cascading waves of guitar, synth, and percussion in a sonic orgy. The effect is at times beautiful and soothing, at times frantic and angsty, and all feels a terrifically apt soundtrack for our times. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and “Waltzing With Bears” stand out as clinics in saying a lot without the need for words.

SOUNDS LIKE: The Sleeping Cliffs is such a particular musical universe that no comparisons are perfectly instructive, but fans of Delicate Steve, Ratatat, and El Ten Eleven should find plenty to appreciate here

FAVORITE TRACK: “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” is such a mood, it puts me into a state of bliss every time it comes on. The delicious bass line, the lilting guitars, the soft bed of synths holding it all up… it’s a perfect arrangement

THREE FAVORITE MOMENTS:

• The groove on “How to Win Friends and Influence People” - but particularly that last drum fill back into the theme around 2:10 when the steady foundation of the groove starts to wobble… a small detail that hits like a freight train

• The howling crescendo that overtakes the mathematical interplay to kick off the final 40 seconds of “Good Advice Bad Advice”

• Every time that gorgeous, twangy lead guitar speaks up in “Crossing the Chasm” like some interloper from a Western