I’m sitting here, writing this review after running into an old friend at the Logan Square train stop, remembering and examining the guilt and embarrassment I feel for what happened to this friendship I stopped cultivating. We planned to meet up over coffee this coming weekend: there is hope. Clover, an album that explores the experience of being an exactly real person, a “three-leaf clover,” and all the remorse, regret, and quiet weight of simply existing, taps directly into those same gnawing emotions. It reminded me of what it means to acknowledge your simpleness, to be human, and to sit in it — the good and the bad soup of it all.

Released this past February, Clover, the debut album from Chicago’s beloved Sleeper’s Bell, feels like a diary being read aloud. But done in such a way that you start to wonder if it’s your own, the one you keep in your sock drawer. With poetically simple and realistic lyrics like “I exist” (“Bored”) and “We watched the Triple A guy take his cables and jump the engine” (“Phone Call”), Blaine Teppema sounds like she’s speaking directly to you.

The songs pull you into a world that just makes sense. Clover doesn’t draw a line between the band’s world and yours. Instead, the artistry anchors both in something more collective: the beautiful ordinariness of real life. Listening to Clover doesn’t feel like stepping into someone else’s story. Instead, it feels like being gently reminded of the unified human landscape in which we are all growing.

Musically, the addition of saxophone to the usual trio of guitar, piano, and drums adds a deeper, more complex mood. Tempos and temperament change throughout the album, and Teppema’s sharp, clear vocals cut through the instrumentation with a directness that makes you pay attention. The “jam” bridges create atmospheric space that’s almost like the author is thinking about what to tell next, as if it’s happening in real time.

Played by Teppema, Evan Green, and other bandmates Leo Paterniti, Jack Henery, Gabe Bostick, and Max Subar, playing together feels spontaneous, carefree, while maintaining clear, intentional musicianship. Sleeper’s Bell plays with arpeggios, ambient noise, bass-heavy build-ups, cheerful melodies, distortion, and even touches of jazz, like a child building with Legos, unafraid to mix pieces that don’t traditionally fit. Clover leans folk at its core, but it’s this sense of curiosity and craft that sets the band apart in a saturated musical landscape.

Clover feels youthful, not in a naive way, but in a way that feels familiar and lived-in. It’s introspective and honest, filled with the kind of self-awareness that only comes with personal growth. The track “Over” captures the feeling of moving through an emotional numbness; its steady, chugging guitar strumming mirrors that sense of pushing forward despite emptiness. The lyric “but I’m just a three-leaf clover” carries a quiet resignation, a sense of being let down by the ordinary, yet learning to accept it.

In contrast, “Road Song” uses dissonant chords and a faster, skippy rhythm to convey a different kind of motion: one that feels restless and searching. It’s about trying to reach a place that may not exist, but holding on to the idea that it could.

Clover doesn’t beg to be heard. It just kind of sits with you, like a quiet thought you didn’t realize you needed to say out loud. It’s not trying to solve anything, but it does make you feel a little less alone in the figuring-it-out part.

Sleeper’s Bell has made their debut album, something that feels deeply personal but not isolating — a moment shared, like running into someone you thought was long gone and realizing you’ve changed and so have they.

Clover is for the in-between weird times, like growing up while staying the same, feeling anger with embarrassment, having regrets while fostering renewal. It reminded me that even in the human mess, there’s value in just existing through it.

Maybe that’s what being a three-leaf clover is about.

You can listen to Clover anywhere you find your music as well as purchase it on vinyl and cassette.

Written by Lauren Kenyon