Both in its longer form on Sanguine Features, the excellent LP from Boston sound stretcher High Aura'd, and on this slightly trimmed excerpt, "Sleep Like the Dead" creeps forward, with twinkling bells, battered tones, and the trumpet of Greg Kelley rising slowly toward an unseen crest. The implied mix of beauty laced with brutality and of brittle tones softened just enough to seem pretty is the chief trick of this track, which finds and exploits several shapes of ambiguity. Though a big beat throbs just beneath the surface, the piece somehow seems arrhythmic, the sheets of tone cutting against that clip with serrated teeth. Moreover, the sprawl suggests a tumble into noisy oblivion or an ascent into glorious crescendo. Instead, "Sleep Like the Dead" just sits in the center, glowing and growling and, eventually, going away.