With The Gaslight Anthem seemingly on a hiatus, Brian Fallon has kept himself busy by diving head first into his solo career by releasing two albums since Gaslight’s most recent album was released in 2014. His newest solo album, Sleepwalkers, was released in 2018 and picks up with where his previous effort, Painkillers, left off. Though if I had to choose one album, it would be Painkillers.
With that said Sleepwalkers is not a bad album by any stretch. The album’s one downfall is its length; with every song close to if not much longer than four minutes. Unless you’re Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin or Lynyrd Skynyrd, the sweet spot for any song is three-tofour minutes in my opinion. Anything longer than that and interest can start to fade, and when every song on an album is longer than that, it’s tough to listen to the entire thing with an earnest ear.
Sleepwalkers was pressed as a double LP (speaking again to the 12 track album’s run time) with two distinct pressings spread across some variants. In this case, when I say pressings it corresponds to a U.S. and Euro pressing; not a first and second pressing. The U.S. pressing is the only one with variants, two in total. Pressing info has not been released for either variant, and it appears as if neither is limited. There is a deluxe variant on red translucent vinyl and a standard variant on black vinyl. The red is/was exclusive to Brian Fallon’s official web store, and comes with a series of 12 exclusive art prints.
One lame thing regarding the purchase options on Brian’s web store is that only bundles are available regardless of variant; you can’t buy just the record. The deluxe bundle costs $35 before shipping ($45 if you want it autographed along with a t-shirt) and the standard bundle costs $30 before shipping (no autograph option but includes same t-shirt). All bundles come with a poster, but one catch with the poster though, only the deluxe bundle comes with it autographed. Regarding the price, if you were to buy this anywhere other than via Brian’s web store, the price would be between $20-$25.
There seems to be some confusion regarding the Euro pressing, as some people think there is a separate German pressing aside from the broad Euro pressing. There is only one Euro pressing. It’s not a UK pressing, nor is there a German pressing of any kind. It’s one broad pressing meant for distribution across all of Europe. Though that is not to say someone outside of Europe can’t order it for import. All copies from the Euro pressing are on black vinyl. Where the confusion comes in is due to the German exclusive bonus 7” that was included for free if you ordered from either German distros Greenhell or Flight 13.
The confusion/misinformation does not stop there either, as some sites have the aforementioned bonus 7” being limited to 500 copies. Pressing info for the German exclusive bonus 7” has not been officially released, anywhere. The only concrete info on the bonus 7” is that it’s pressed on translucent brown with black marble/translucent blood red with black marble vinyl, and it’s a promo. The track listing for the 7” includes “Forget Me Not” on the a-side with an exclusive acoustic version of the song on the b-side.
As a U.S. resident, if you were to buy the Euro pressing from one of the aforementioned German distros, you would have to fork over a good chunk of change. After the exchange rate it comes out to close to $40 before international shipping. As of posting this copies of the album including the bonus 7” are long sold out directly from distros, but Greenhell occasionally sells copies on Discogs including the 7”, and from personal experience it costs around $60 buying it off Discogs from them after shipping.
Despite the record being a double LP, only the deluxe edition form the U.S. pressing comes in a gatefold jacket, all the other variants/pressings come in a cheap, flimsy single pocket jacket. An insert is included with all copies though, but no download card/code since this is an Island Records release. Island records seems to be one of the pioneering major labels to not include a digital download card/code in any of their vinyl releases as of 2017. And the music industry wonders why they lose money.
Stitches and Grooves 