I Killed The Prom Queen - 'Sleepless Nights and City Lights'

A mediocre live album that doesn’t do much for the average metal fan, and will only satisfy die-hard fans of I Killed The Prom Queen.

Recorded during their 2008 Say Goodbye tour, Sleepless Nights and City Lights is the first live album from Australian metalcore quintet I Killed The Prom Queen. While the band dissolved in 2007, the original members reunited in June 2008 for a brief tour of their home country. The live album is 14 tracks of straight-forward metalcore. While the band does a competent enough job, technical issues ultimately bring the album down.

The band is energetic onstage, and bringing back vocalist Michael Crafter for the tour was a great idea. His growls and screams are solid, but his clean vocals didn’t translate well to the live atmosphere, sounding forced and powerless. Guitarists Jona Weinhofen and Kevin Cameron are a decent duo, with the former providing clean vocals from time to time that turn out sounding tinny and hollow. The bass is drowned out in the mix, and drummer JJ Peters is loud; so loud, in fact, that it overpowers the rest of the instruments at times. The band stumbles quite a bit, especially in the timing department, and the few guitar solos played are wild and sloppy.

I Killed The Prom Queen takes songs from their two studio albums, 2004’s When Goodbye Means Forever and 2006’s Music For The Recently Deceased, along with some material from the band’s early EP Choose To Live Or Die. The fans, when they get a chance to be heard (which isn’t too often), seem to appreciate the song selection, and no songs seemed to be missed.

Sleepless Nights And City Lights will appeal to the band’s loyal fan base, but nobody else. I Killed The Prom Queen didn’t gain a large following in the United States, and considering the large quantity of metalcore bands on these shores, that isn’t too surprising. During the band’s brief time together, they brought no sense of originality to the genre, and it shows on Sleepless Nights And City Lights.