Asleep At Heaven's Gate

iTunes Review

Thirty seconds into “Harmonium,” the song that opens Rogue Wave’s third album Asleep at Heaven’s Gate, it becomes clear that they’ve gelled as a band and are eager to make a statement. Where their first two albums (both lo-fi, low-key gems) sounded loose, off-the-cuff, and vulnerable, the band is all polished precision here. Singer and songwriter Zack Rogue has a knack for melody and big hooks and Asleep is loaded with both (“Chicago X 12” is one of his best songs yet). With the exception of a pair of lovely, relatively subdued and straight-forward ballads (“Christian in Black,” “Missed”) the rest of the songs are honed to the finest detail, whether it’s a single ringing guitar note, a flourish of shimmering cymbals, or a piano chord drenched in reverb. By embracing the studio in a big way, they’ve created a dense, effects-laden sound heavy with overdubbed spacey guitars and dreamy keyboards, a liberal use of echo on the vocals, and lots of layered harmonies, and the often gorgeous results mark an interesting new direction for this promising band.