Review of Season of Melancholy - In Sleep
There is something slightly strange about In Sleep. On the surface, Season of Melancholy have made a record that is remarkably easy to get into. The songs are melodic, the choruses arrive where you expect them, the guitars have enough weight to satisfy the metal crowd, and the post-punk and gothic elements give everything a darker colour. It doesn't exactly demand that you decode it.
But then you look at where these songs came from.
The material was written between 2018 and 2024, across a period that changed life in Ukraine in ways nobody could have predicted. The band had enough material for a new album just before the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Recording plans were then stretched across years of air-raid alerts, missile attacks, power cuts, line-up changes and all the usual chaos that comes with trying to make music when normal life has stopped being particularly normal.
That doesn't automatically make an album good, of course. But it does make In Sleep more interesting than its fairly accessible surface might suggest.
Season of Melancholy describe themselves as Ukrainian Romantic Metal, although that label doesn't really tell the whole story. There is metal here, but also a considerable amount of gothic rock and post-punk, and the latter isn't simply being used as a fashionable decoration. The band clearly understands the appeal of a strong bassline, a danceable rhythm and a vocal that can carry a song without constantly trying to overpower it.
“Inmate” gets things moving without wasting much time. The guitars have enough crunch to keep the track away from pure goth-rock territory, while the rhythm section gives it a pulse that could work just as well in a club as on a festival stage. The chorus is deliberately big, but not embarrassingly so. This is one of those songs where you understand immediately what the band is trying to achieve.
And then In Sleep starts revealing its other side.
“Farewell Song” and “Ghost” slow things down and leave more room for atmosphere, with keyboards adding colour around the guitars rather than simply announcing that this is supposed to be gothic music. The contrast is useful because Season of Melancholy are at their best when they allow the different parts of their sound to interact instead of pushing everything towards maximum heaviness.
The bass deserves particular attention throughout the record. It isn't buried underneath the guitars, and in several of the more post-punk-influenced passages it becomes one of the things that actually drives the song. That's important because otherwise the metallic side could easily flatten the more interesting rhythmic character of the music.
“T.Y.CH.I.Y.A.” is also worth singling out. The Ukrainian-language vocal immediately changes the character of the song, making it feel more intimate and less like another English-language gothic rock number. There is something particularly convincing about hearing the band step away from their usual lyrical language here. It doesn't feel like a token gesture; it fits naturally into the emotional weight of the song.
“Change of the Scene” and “Way Out” bring back the more immediate side of the album. These are songs built around momentum and hooks rather than instrumental showmanship. Season of Melancholy aren't interested in throwing technical guitar solos at you every few minutes, and that's probably the right decision. Their strongest weapon is the combination of melody, rhythm and atmosphere.
Still, this approach has its downside.
After several listens, the album's structures become increasingly predictable. Season of Melancholy know how to build a song, but they don't always seem interested in breaking the pattern once they've found something that works. Verses lead into choruses, heavier sections arrive at the right moment, quieter passages create contrast, and everything generally lands where it should.
The first few times around, that's satisfying.
Later, it can become a little too comfortable.
That is especially noticeable because In Sleep contains enough different influences to suggest that the band could push themselves further. The post-punk foundation could be allowed to become stranger. The gothic elements could occasionally become more unsettling. The metallic side could be used in less predictable ways. There are glimpses of those possibilities, but the band usually chooses the safest route back to the song.
“Born in Lies” and “Down in Rage” nevertheless keep the heavier side alive, with the latter particularly suited to the band's more aggressive approach. Yet even here, Season of Melancholy remain more interested in the groove and the chorus than in outright musical violence.
And that's really what defines In Sleep.
This is accessible music with a dark heart, rather than dark music deliberately made inaccessible. There is a difference. Season of Melancholy clearly want younger listeners and festival audiences to connect with the material, and they have succeeded in making the songs immediate without completely sanding away the melancholy that has been part of their identity from the beginning.
The danger is that accessibility can eventually turn into predictability. A handful of these songs are likely to stick immediately; whether all twelve will still demand your attention months later is another question.
The title track closes the album by returning to the central idea of those who leave the world in their sleep, without a final goodbye or the chance to make peace with themselves. After everything that came before it, the title suddenly carries more weight. The album has travelled through different periods of the band's lives, and its mixture of melancholy, aggression and more upbeat moments starts to make sense as a whole.
In Sleep isn't a flawless record. Its songwriting sometimes plays things too safely, and the reliance on familiar structures becomes more apparent with repeated listening. But there is something to be said for a band that knows exactly what emotional territory it wants to occupy and doesn't hide behind unnecessary complexity.
Season of Melancholy have taken songs written across peace, pandemic uncertainty and full-scale war and somehow turned them into a coherent album rather than a scrapbook of different eras.
That's no small achievement.
And perhaps the most fitting thing about In Sleep is that despite its title and subject matter, this isn't sleepy music at all. There is too much movement underneath it: restless basslines, nervous guitars, dark melodies, sudden bursts of aggression and choruses that clearly want to be shouted back from a crowd.
It is melancholy, yes.
But it is very much alive.
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