I remember in 2023, I was just exploring around Surrey’s annual party for the planet, which is their celebration of Earth Day, featuring live performing bands and food trucks.

I was browsing the place with no money, and capturing pictures of the scene on my phone until I discovered a band named Sleepy Gonzales performing. I was drawn to the front of the crowd when I heard their song, “Alligatorzzz” played live for the first time, and it was a moment where I wished I brought my DSLR and a good mic to better capture the moment instead of my phone.

Upon discovering the Surrey band, I wish they included a clean live recording of that song somewhere. At the time, I didn’t notice their newer EP release in the summer of 2023 called “Mercy Kill”. I noticed how the band’s sound shifted. Their EP explores a whole range of themes like loving what harms you to clinging to something you should have abandoned long ago. 

Mercy Kill

The reason behind the name is that the vocalist, Ally Lowry, doesn’t like the concept of mercy killing, which is killing someone from an incurable pain or disease. The main term for it is euthanasia. She says that when death approaches you, try and give as much space from it as you can. To rush death means that you only think of your discomfort and pain, forgetting what makes our existence so important.

A song that stands out to them is called “Destroyer”, which is about the ease of falling into things that lead to self-destruction like toxic relationships and drugs. 

In the making of that song, their producer, Colin Stewart left out some mics as he went for lunch, and the band asked Ally to enter the live room and scream while gradually growing more intense to the point where it’s bloodcurdling like from a horror movie. In one take, those screams are what made it in the recording

All of their songs in this EP have a deeper meaning to it, and the band acknowledges that you can’t digest all the themes in one listen. 

When you let yourself be changed by the music you create, the band says you put in an element in your music that doesn’t stop growing.

They say the music changes depending on your mood and the speakers you listen through. They hope that people will take another listen at a different angle and listen to how the music changes with them.