Sleep Theory delivers the dynamic, heavy bounce and massive vocal hooks that the rock world desperately needs. Cullen Moore is a powerhouse singer who outmatches nearly all his peers, recalling the most classic and timeless pop, R&B, and rock n’ roll vocalists of the last several decades. In less than two years, they became the fifth most-played artist on Active Rock radio, with three songs on the year-end rock charts on YouTube and Amazon. “Fallout” was the ninth most-played song on Active Rock in 2024. Jelly Roll and David Draiman sing the band’s praises. Shinedown, Falling In Reverse, Beartooth, Nothing More, Wage War, Set It Off, and Daughtry have taken them on tour. On Afterglow, Sleep Theory’s full-length debut, and the Paper Hearts EP, the band’s rich, emotional sound combines anthemic heavy rock like Linkin Park and Bring Me The Horizon with pop and R&B, equally adept at breakdowns and ballads. Amazon Music, Loudwire, and Revolver named them an Artist To Watch in 2025. Revolver rightly declared, “The band’s exciting mix of metalcore, pop, and R&B … has positioned Sleep Theory as one of heavy music’s biggest breakouts.” Sleep Theory pushes themselves creatively at every turn, catapulting the genre to new sonic heights.
There’s a phrase you’ll hear repeatedly when in the company of Split Chain: “The Chain does what it wants”. As mantras go, it’s used by the Bristol, UK quintet as a means of encapsulating the broad-minded, unconstrained creative freedom with which they approach their art, as well as a means through which to try to make sense of the sky-rocketing trajectory the band have found themselves on. Call it instinct, fate, divine intervention, whatever – the whims of ‘The Chain’ have led to a moment where one thing is abundantly clear: Split Chain are one of the hottest, zeitgeist-capturing new bands in the world. “Split Chain is something that none of us feel like we have any control of,” says frontman Bert Martinez-Cowles. “Split Chain simply does what it wants and what it needs.” It is at this juncture in Split Chain’s journey that debut album motionblur arrives. Described by Bert as “a coming of age story”, the album channels the conflicting and contradictory angst, excitement, joy and pain of growing up and discovering your true sense of self. motionblur presents a story that speaks to both Split Chain’s members’ personal experiences and those shared together in the past few dizzying years; a visceral, kaleidoscopic wall of sound where unsettling, disorientating confusion meets a fevered adrenaline-rush. motionblur is an album to experience, to feel, to engulf; it’s the blissful sense of euphoria that comes with drowning in its waves. There are shades of the quintet’s beloved Deftones, Superheaven, Narrowhead; bursts of nu-metal, and ripples of shoegaze. An emo melancholy hangs heavy. Grunge swerves in and out of view. Metal crackles under the surface. Its beauty lies in its skillfully crafted coalescence, no mean feat for an album so richly varied yet singularly focused. motionblur is at once a nostalgic homage to its 90s and early 00s cultural reference points while never once sounding anything less than thrillingly vibrant, a captivating depiction of rock’s burgeoning present and future.