WHILE SHE SLEEPS are:

Lawrence Taylor  |  Sean Long  |  Mat Welsh  |  Aaran Mckenzie  |  Adam Savage

WHILE SHE SLEEPS released their fourth full-length studio album SO WHAT? on March 1st, 2019. The new single from the album, "Haunt Me" is an explosive, relentless anthem, taking everything you know and love about While She Sleeps - clattering riffs, bruising breakdowns, snarling lyrics, and big-ass sing-alongs  - and sticks them in a blender. It's punk, it's heavy metal, it couldn't be any other band but them, and yet it sounds unlike anything you've heard from them before. It's the sound of While She Sleeps reborn with the attitude of "We've let our hair down, and we've got our bollocks out."

Some bands play it safe when it comes to taking their next steps. But then again, While She Sleeps have never been "some band." The Sheffield quintet have made a career out of confounding expectations, be it through their dizzying blend of crushing metal, guttural hardcore and arena-worthy hooks, or the way they've carried themselves over an explosive, 13-year career.

Their last album, 2017's You Are We was a testament to the power of self-belief and determination. It was solely crowd-funded and released on the band's own Sleeps Brothers label and earned them award nominations from the likes of Metal Hammer and a Best Album win at the Heavy Music Awards, as well as landing them in the top ten of the UK album charts.

Now, they look to build on that success with the release of fourth studio album with the provocative title, SO WHAT? " 'You Are We' got us to this special position, and it has given us a platform," says guitarist Sean Long. "For us, it's like, 'What can we do to really stick this in people's faces? What can we put out there that we're buzzing off?' I don't want to be following everyone else; I want people to follow us."

Recorded with producer Carl Bown at the band's self-built studio Sleeps Audio, SO WHAT? is another defiant step forwards. Released on Sleeps Brothers in collaboration with metal mega-label Spinefarm Records, the new record sees While She Sleeps working with a major label again for the first time since 2015's Brainwashed, and the band are at pains to point out that this won't mean there'll be any compromise in their vision.

"We got approached immediately by a bunch of labels, but we turned around to all of them and said, 'The only way we're going to do anything is if you let us release it on Sleeps Brothers, but you house that on your train, and we make the decisions behind everything," guitarist/vocalist Mat Welsh explains. "I fucking loved releasing 'You Are We' ourselves, but at the same time, I played more on my laptop than I did on my guitar for the whole campaign. This release is a partnership between Sleeps Brothers and Spinefarm, but no one is breathing down our necks about the record we're making or the singles we're putting out."

With a bigger platform to get their music into the world and a firestorm of a new single, and a U.S. tour supporting Architects, along with live performances at a number of festivals, 2019 is shaping up to be the year of While She Sleeps. For a band that have spent over a decade redefining modern metal, it seems the best is yet to come.