Dreamland - Glass Animals: Review
are an English pop rock band who blew up in the mid 2000's off of a pair of albums uniquely blending indie rock, electronica and hip hop together. Back in 2018 when they were initially working on a third album the bands drummer was involved in a serious cycling incident that caused the band to cancel their tour and delay work on the album while he recovered. Starting in November of last year the band released 5 singles in the lead up to Dreamland, which was delayed twice as a result of pandemic and social justice factors.
Review By Lavender:
It's pretty damn cool that Glass Animals are back in action. While I have my reservations with their debut record Zaba the bands 2016 follow-up How To Be A Human Being was an instant favorite of mine upon release and has stayed in my rotation ever since. It is also cool because as details emerged surrounding Joe Seaward's scary bike crash it made many wonder if he would ever really play with the group again. So there we're plenty of reasons to be excited that the band was back with another album, but also some cause for alarm. Not only did this album cycle have a pair of the worst singles I think the band has ever released but it also comes a full 4 years after their last record and the one that won me over to their sound. With how much they relied on blending indie tropes with ultra-contemporary sounds I was interested to see how they would progress their sound to fit 2020. Now that I've heard the record I wouldn't say that they failed at this, but I also can't say that unequivocally succeeded because Dreamland has some highs and some lows, and nearly every song comes with a caveat.
Let's talk highlights first because there were still two singles I really enjoyed starting with Your Love (Deja Vu) earlier this year. The song has dancy grooves, wiggly synths and an instantly catchy hook that all adds up to Glass Animals doing what they do best and playing to their strengths. On the flip side of this the records final single before it's release saw the band stepping out of their comfort zone and doing so in an effective and meaningful way on It's All So Incredibly Loud. This song is by far the grandest thing on the record and I really enjoy the angelic and ascendant key phrases and dramatic melodies. Despite it's nature as a slow burner it is one of the biggest things I've ever heard the band do and I think they pull it off well. The only other song on the entire album that I flat out loved is Space Ghost Coast To Coast. It's the most instantaneous song on the album with a smooth ass bassline and an entire tracks worth of catchy refrains. Of course there are some more great wiggle synths and the reference heavy lyrics bleed with the bands personality and I couldn't possibly enjoy the track more.
What I meant when I said that almost every song here had a caveat is that the rest of these tracks are somewhere between barely tolerable and pretty good, but even the best of them have some super obvious flaws. Dreamland is the opener and is clearly important thematically which is good because sonically it doesn't offer much. It's a very cloudy opener with frontal vocals and distant shimmery keys. It is quite a ham fisted opener as the band tries to transition you into their new sound without much room for nuance but the track is so simple I think it can almost work if you don't pay too much attention to it. Tangerine kicks off with some summery trap drums that are straight out of a hit song from the summer of 2016. The hook is really really wordy and also features some vocals that are worked so thin through the vocal manipulations that they sound cheap, like they would break in the palm of your hand. The only saving grace for this song is that the bridge and final chorus are a huge improvement, the melody on the bridge is WAY better than the actual hook of the song and the final chorus foregoes the bad voice effects and helps the song at least end on a high note. Hot damn, hot water, Hot Sugar is a big vocal improvement right out of the gate and I enjoy the driving build-up the song has over its first two minutes. Unfortunately after all that great building up the payoff is a really underwhelming drum passage with even more obscured vocals that makes the build less worthwhile and the songs conclusion very flat.
Melon And The Coconut is a Neighborhood and and it doesn't even pretend to try and hide it. I don't necessarily love it or hate it but it's so obviously derivative literally everything about it from the vocals to the lyrics to the instrumental straight up rip off The Neighborhood. Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth is the track that has the big dicks and big ol titties line you've probably heard about at some point this week. I ended up coming around to the instrumental on this song more than I would I had a feeling the only punch it would pull was the weird kind of alien synth line but the percussion turns out to be pretty interesting. If you can ignore all of the lyrics to this song it is a pretty good track. Finally Domestic Bliss is the bands shot at a ballad and I think it turns out decent. The instrumental is fittingly spacious which does get a little boring as the song runs on particularly without a very impassioned lead vocal performance. I think the song is decent and one of the better tracks in the records final run.
I saved the worst songs for last here starting with the lead single Tokyo Drifting I had really hoped that Dave's vocals would be remixed or re-recorded for the album version of this record but they sadly were not. Once again there are some major mixing issues particularly around the vocals but that isn't even the worst part about the song. It uses incredibly weak transitions at one point literally fading out into near silence and at others rumbling into flow devoid auto-tune moaning. The only saving grace the track has is its Denzel Curry feature, given how bold of a beat this is to rap over Denzel brings absolute fireworks with his explosive and energetic performance. Heat Waves is a single I had completely forgotten about and a song whose sheer monotony caught up with me when I listened to the whole album for the first time. The EXACT same flow is repeated throughout the entire tracks refrains from both verses to all three hooks. The instrumental is decent but only if you are comfortable with the incessant rattling high hat drums that don't even stop during the tracks quietest moments. Finally the closing track Helium is an absolute snooze. Usually I'm a fan of Dave's vocal range but the performance on this song doesn't do much for me particularly when he is reaching into his upper register. The actual song itself is pretty flat and it's fade-out is even more underwhelming given it closes the entire album off. The final minute or so of the track interpolates the records intro track but in a way that is even more obscured than the song originally is and while I totally see what they were going for it just doesn't work, and the record ends up being left off on a really underwhelming moment.
When you dial it back and look at Dreamland as a whole it is easy to see all the good ideas that went into it, but on a minute to minute basis results vary big time. While almost every song here has something worth hearing, almost every song here also has flaws you'll need to overcome to enjoy them. While I enjoyed more of this album than I didn't it is honestly pretty close and more competent mixing and placement of vocal effects could have saved so much here. 5.5/10
Album Cover By Tyler Judson:
I had a lot of hope for this record. The How To Be A Human Being cover is one of my favorites of 2016 and I wanted this one to have the same success. I like the aesthetic and color palette but the cover lacks something that I can't put my finger on. It just isn't satisfying Dave's face front and center doesn't have the intended effect of a subject. While it's okay and works it just doesn't live up to their previous work which makes it a little disappointing. 5.5/10
For more indie check out my review of Cloud Nothings The Black Hole Understands here
