“I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful, yet so unaware of it,” The 1975’s sophomore album, dropped on Feb. 26. It came out after the band released five singles earlier this year.

Despite a few minor flaws, this much anticipated record definitely had points where it lived up to and maybe even surpassed their debut album.

“I like it when you sleep” started off with a slightly different take on the last record’s atmospheric first track, the 1975. This prelude hints to what we can expect from the rest of the album.

Most of the songs on the album have the same general sound; however, there are some great surprises thrown in such as the funky 80’s pop sounding Love Me and UGH which start the album off on a really upbeat note.

Matty Healy sometimes has such strong emotion in his voice, but other times, the songs are so general that he doesn’t take advantage of his incredible talent to tell such raw stories through his singing. Compare his bland boy band sounding voice in She’s American to his rage-fueled vocals in Ballad of me and my Brain. If I Believe You is a soulful, almost spiritual track, but it could leave so much more of an impact if the vocals were stepped up a bit.

Despite this, some pretty vivid stories are told in this album. Nana, for example, is about the death of Healy’s grandmother. This song is very fragile and emotional.

Perhaps the most surprising track on “I like it when you sleep” is the closing song, She Lays Down. This simple, acoustic tune takes a huge step away from the more complex songs. Even more toned down than the instrumental songs, this track wraps up the album on such a soft, and meaningful note.

Overall, I felt “I like it when you sleep” was a major success for the band. I really enjoyed hearing it for the first time, and will definitely listen again (and again and again…). Though it may be pretty early to start saying this, I feel like this album really helped the 1975 to firmly define themselves.

Instead of putting together a completely different sound or selling out for their second album, they carried the slick style of their debut album through to this one while also introducing more variety. This great balance of noisy earworms and emotional ballads helped this band to totally dodge the sophomore slump. I highly recommend this album. 8/10.

16bmathias@usd489.com