Album Review: Talk In Your Sleep by Midlife Pilot
Midlife Pilot is a name I’ve been hearing around the Richmond music scene for quite a while now. Releasing their first EPs back before the pandemic, the band has been nibbling around the fringes of the scene ever since, generally with frontman and chief songwriter Casey Graham being the only constant member. Over the past couple of years, Graham has gotten quite prolific–Talk In Your Sleep is the fifth album Midlife Pilot has released in the past two years. However, when looked at another way, you could consider this LP their debut, as it represents the first time Midlife Pilot has created and recorded music as a true band.
The current lineup features Graham on guitar and vocals, backed by guitarist Daniel Hart, bassist Will Janowitz, and drummer Zack Bruington. While some of these folks have been involved in previous Midlife Pilot recordings, they didn’t truly become part of a band until now. Instead, the four previous albums this project has released since early 2024 mostly present the different musical sides of Casey Graham. Full-length debut Idle Themes, released in January 2024, is closest to what the band has presented us on their new offering, Talk In Your Sleep, but it’s more acoustic-focused and has a decidedly more indie feel, despite capturing Graham’s evocative, emotional songwriting style.
Really, that songwriting style is the connecting thread that ties all five of these albums together, as it shows through just as well on October 2024’s Boxley, an album Graham assembled entirely on his own and originally intended to turn into a new electronic-music project. His decision to eventually release it as a Midlife Pilot project seems like a wise one in hindsight, as it is instrumentation more than any other factor that distinguishes this album from any other Midlife Pilot release. If you focus on the songwriting, the vocals, the instrumental melodies and rhythms, you can immediately tell that this is the same band, even if it’s only the band’s frontman you’re hearing play/program all these instruments.
Early 2025’s Roxy–another album recorded entirely by Graham on his own–brings us closer to the known territory of guitar-based melodic rock tunes than Boxley does, but it’s still fairly electronic at points, especially on tracks like “Final Boss,” which seems like an attempt at straight-up video game music (and a solid one as well). The final third of this trilogy of Casey Graham solo productions released under the name Midlife Pilot was late spring 2025’s Dropsey, which probably points most closely to the sound Midlife Pilot would eventually land on as a full band. In amongst the more electronically oriented tunes, which remain the majority, there are also solo acoustic tracks, and even a couple of rock-ish acoustic-electric tunes. However, none of this fully prepares the listener for what they will get from Talk In Your Sleep.
The most important thing to notice about the sound of Midlife Pilot’s new album, Talk In Your Sleep, is how much more unified it is than any previous release by the band. If it was somewhat clear even at the time that their previous albums were assembled from a variety of musical odds and ends that were loosely grouped together by theme, that becomes far more so in hindsight, as you hear the way this honest-to-goodness band has created a gorgeous, unified work on Talk In Your Sleep. The foundation, as it always has been, remains Casey Graham’s multi-instrumental chops, as well as his passionate yet note-perfect vocals and heartfelt lyrics. However, this album really shows how important it was for him to get a band together that could truly bring his vision to life.
The album begins with dual arpeggio melodies played on Graham and Hart’s guitars, which are soon given a strong atmospheric depth by the more driving, muscular rhythm section that swings in underneath. Anyone who appreciates bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Moving Mountains, or The Hotelier will surely feel their ears perk up as this opening instrumental, “Introduction,” spools quickly out. And when it leads right into “This Year,” the switch into chunky yet catchy guitar chords meshes well with the increased tempo to make the whole album feel like it’s leaping into a higher gear. The harmonized vocal chorus adds a stronger melodic undercurrent to “This Year,” but the song’s overall driving tempo connects with a tradition of tough, post-hardcore emo riffage without doing much of the sometimes self-indulgent circuitous lead guitar noodling that gets referred to as “twinkly.” I approve. Keep the riffs strong and powerful. That’s the way to move a listener. That and the way the song fades back to a very quiet, minimal bridge before dropping back in heavier than ever on the final chorus. This is great stuff, and we’re only two songs in.
“Silver Lining” is another strong early highlight, a track that retains the slightly more indie-folk feel of the material on Idle Themes while distinguishing itself from the prior Midlife Pilot material with more powerful rhythms and thicker, distorted rhythm guitar riffs. Personally, I find the contrast between crooned melodic vocals and heavy rock riffs to be extremely emotionally resonant, and Midlife Pilot nail that in a big way on “Silver Lining,” even as the song has a twangy feeling that harks back to their earlier material.
If anything, this fact is a reflection of how long and hard a process Midlife Pilot went through to make this album. Work with previous collaborators Dave Alcan (who recorded 10 of the album’s 12 songs) and Mitch Clem (who tracked the remaining two) lasted most of the past two years, throughout the time the band were releasing their previous four albums. As Graham explains in the liner notes, “We wanted to make sure every detail in all of the songs matched our vision.” It only takes one listen to detect the meticulous planning and arrangement that went into the recording and production of this album–and it takes less than a full listen to learn to appreciate the results Midlife Pilot and their recording engineers came up with.
“Fortunes” is a song from the back half of the album that stands out to me; slower and less urgent than the majority of the tracks on Talk In Your Sleep, it finds a particularly strong melodic hook to base the guitar leads and vocal patterns around. It may not have a particularly powerful musical crescendo for your brain to key into, but those melodies make this track one of the most likely candidates on this album to get stuck in your head for three days running. It is then followed immediately by “Bluebird,” which has a more upbeat and incredibly catchy verse riff, which leads into a powerful instrumental chorus that is sure to get a lot of toes tapping.
The two Mitch Clem productions on the album stand out in an interesting way–both depart from the instrumental template the other 10 songs work from, and in so doing act as interludes that break up the album in a pleasant way that helps the listener index the sounds passing through their ears. “Barricade” is an acoustic track that arrives at the halfway point of the album, bridging the gap between the opening sequence of half a dozen or so emotional rock tunes and the three that follow, some of which–“Field Recording” in particular–date back to a time before even Idle Themes had been released. The new version of “Field Recording” finds the biting emotion that lies at the song’s heart, roughening up its chorus without robbing it of an ounce of its melodic power.
“4am,” the other Mitch Clem track, is based around piano arrangements and multilayered vocal that sounds like the big emotional ballad moment on a Chiodos record or something. It’s fine, but certainly not my favorite. However, it does make album ender “Habit” much more attention grabbing. This catchy, moving post-hardcore tune hits hard and brings the album to a close on a high note that will leave you not only feeling great, but also in the perfect mood to just fire up track 1 all over again.
Talk In Your Sleep is definitely an album designed for repeated listens, and it will reward them as well, since it is so packed full of subtle, layered melodies and brilliant riffs that you’ll definitely need to play it quite a few times before you’ve heard them all. Go on–hit play. Let’s hear it again.
Talk In Your Sleep is available to listen now via Bandcamp, Spotify, and other streaming platforms. Follow Midlife Pilot on social media for future updates and releases.
