MY SLEEPING KARMA

MY SLEEPING KARMA "Atma"

By Dr. Abner Mality

MY SLEEPING KARMA is a name I've seen for many years, but never paid attention to. I didn't even know they were an all-instrumental band until I listened to "Atma", I can almost guarantee that at some point I confused them with KARMA TO BURN. I'll bet I wasn't the only one.

To be brutally honest, the band plays pretty typical post-metal music. Soft soundscapes give way to jangly guitars that at some point pick up pace and heaviness before inevitably returning to the jangly bits. So it is with MY SLEEPING KARMA. The press sheet makes it sound like the band went through the torments of the damned in recording this album and that the trauma is part of the music. I can't hear it. There are certainly points of interest, like the rocking gallop that ends "Prema" or the electronic beats of "Muldi". But the songs generally tend to sound much the same and the band's music comes across as pleasant background music to play while you are performing some monotonous task.

There is a keyboardist and some of the synth adds interesting texture. At one point, "Pralaya" almost sounds like HAWKWIND style space rock. But sure enough, it's back to the jangle and the typical soft/hard dynamic. I just cannot find anything sufficiently different here to move me. That tends to be a problem with most instrumental bands.

NAPALM RECORDS

MY SLEEPING KARMA