AMG Review of Sleep Late for a Better Tomorrow

Stewart Mason
All Music Guide

Despite the band name, New York quintet Dirty on Purpose plays a notably clean-toned take on the kind of hypnotic dream pop perfected by the likes of Yo La Tengo, lacking that band's fondness for feedback and distortion. Nonetheless, the combination of charmingly artless male and female voices will be familiar to YLT fans, as will the unhurried motorik-style rhythms and droning guitar lines of songs like the pulsating opener, "All New Friends." "Mind Blindness" adds the reverb-soaked sonics of the U.K. shoegazer bands, and the hushed, cello-enhanced acoustic tune "Cheat Death" brings in the requisite Nick Drake influence. So there's very little that's new about Sleep Late for a Better Tomorrow, but Dirty on Purpose does their influences proud on this pleasant, low-key debut.