In making their third record, Hex Key, Mamalarky spent entire seasons hunched over guitars and obscure synthesizers, their long hair sweeping over strings or covering concentrated eyes. The band recorded takes in between the sounds of passing ice cream trucks and yowling stray cats in their LA home studio, a tight but prolific living room. Hex Key is a document of perseverance, of going for the gold while somehow remaining totally aware of one’s own vulnerabilities. These effervescent, swirling songs chronicle vivid desires crashing against real-life limitations but finding a way to keep burning anyway. That tension between anguish and resilience, between performed aloofness and brutal honesty, drives the music, imbues it with a compelling intensity. Over the last 8 years, the quartet’s members have lived in Austin, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, and have established a bond that they acknowledge is rare. “We have an unmatched level of trust in each other,” drummer Dylan Hill says. “There is no air of professionalism. It's literally just four friends hanging out and getting to the bottom of something.” Given their closeness, Mamalarky are able to fight like family, not necessarily with each other, but for the music, to make it the best it can be. Whereas their last album, Pocket Fantasy, was exploratory and free-flowing, the songs on Hex Key are the result of absolute devotion and fine tuning. It’s the kind of attention to detail that can only happen when the four bandmates are working alone together, uninterrupted by producers, engineers, or any outside influences. “It’s never ‘kick your feet up, let’s see what happens,” guitarist and singer Livvy Bennett says. “We’re always staring each other deeply in the eyes saying ‘Let’s make this next take incredible.’ We never settle.” The band is so committed to their craft that Hill even recorded the drums for “#1 Best of All Time” amidst an intense bout of poison ivy. The determination he felt in the moment manifested itself in the song’s frantic-but-focused percussion, he says.
Sleep Theory delivers the dynamic, heavy bounce and massive vocal hooks that the rock world desperately needs. Cullen Moore is a powerhouse singer who outmatches nearly all his peers, recalling the most classic and timeless pop, R&B, and rock n’ roll vocalists of the last several decades. In less than two years, they became the fifth most-played artist on Active Rock radio, with three songs on the year-end rock charts on YouTube and Amazon. “Fallout” was the ninth most-played song on Active Rock in 2024. Jelly Roll and David Draiman sing the band’s praises. Shinedown, Falling In Reverse, Beartooth, Nothing More, Wage War, Set It Off, and Daughtry have taken them on tour. On Afterglow, Sleep Theory’s full-length debut, and the Paper Hearts EP, the band’s rich, emotional sound combines anthemic heavy rock like Linkin Park and Bring Me The Horizon with pop and R&B, equally adept at breakdowns and ballads. Amazon Music, Loudwire, and Revolver named them an Artist To Watch in 2025. Revolver rightly declared, “The band’s exciting mix of metalcore, pop, and R&B … has positioned Sleep Theory as one of heavy music’s biggest breakouts.” Sleep Theory pushes themselves creatively at every turn, catapulting the genre to new sonic heights.