PRE-ORDER: End Of The World [LP]

End of the World is The Sleeper album Louise Wener has been waiting a lifetime to write. A collection of ten deeply personal songs, it shifts focus from the wit, swagger and observational storytelling of the band's 90s work to something more direct, emotionally exposed and unguarded."It's a very different record for me," says Louise. "I'm Gen X, we tend not to confront our emotions or display them easily to the outside world. There's strength in that, but also solitude. I got to the point where I felt I was dissolving. Like if I didn't put my discomfort somewhere, I'd cease to exist."Written and recorded between Paris and Manchester, the album was produced by Joe Cross (The Courteeners, Hurts, Louis Tomlinson, The Slow Readers Club). "We made the album over 18 months, working in small bursts. I wasn't in a great place when we started, and the recording sessions became these vital touchstones. Brief windows where life made sense." The record moves through grief, regret, loneliness and the struggle to let go. Ultimately, it's about coming through - finding the strength to stop making yourself smaller and discovering there can be freedom on the other side of something you thought might destroy you. Lead single and album title track, "End of the World", leans into that feeling. "It's a song about breaking free. The moment you turn round and say: Enough. I'm done. Whoever is hurting you - a partner, a family member, a way of life that no longer fits - leaving may feel like your world is ending. It might also be the most liberating thing you can do."Where 2019's comeback album The Modern Age found Sleeper reconnecting with their identity as a band, End of the World captures an artist discovering what she has to say now. "I had to work out who I was at this point in my life. It's so common, I think, this mid-life vertigo. Everything felt like it was shifting: kids leaving home, family ripped apart after my mother's death, things from my past I'd spent years trying not to confront, the wider world becoming harder to make sense of. It's suffocating, living a version of yourself you no longer recognize."For all it's darkness, the music is sonically bold and euphoric, with Wener's characteristic earworm hooks and anthemic choruses running through every song. "I'd planned to make an album that was low temperature, but these emotions don't come quietly, they roar from you. The album is big and I think it's exhilarating to listen to. You hear the catharsis. The aim, always, is to lay down some truth in your music. That's all there is. The best feeling in the world is when it connects.