Review Summary: Dreamcar is a middling release with half of a personality made by a band already asleep behind the wheel.
Before unpacking this product, I readily admit to pretension. Yet, it'd still be only just a bit less pretentious than naming your band Dreamcar.
Why not Delorean？ Colonel Phil Collin’s Parade of Percussion？ A Doubt Inside？
Bluntly, listening to this was the equivalent to hearing two groups of strangers stuck in purgatory: “What the hell ？ We might as well make music while we’re stuck here. I mean, we’re musicians. Let’s bang something out.”
“After I Confess” isn’t awful; appropriate to start the album with, & has enough energy with the high hat beat to let the rest of the song kick in without much tediousness.
However, Havok's vocal style and lyrics seem unintentionally mournful and at times sound hilariously out of place. "My ghost is yours", to quote Havok in this number.
Uh, thanks. I guess ？
“Kill For Candy” is just short of teeth grinding when the chorus kicks in. “Born to Lie” is less annoying, & actually not bad if you ignore some of the lyrics: ”How I'd love, I'd love to love you / Just a little / How I'd love, I'd love to be moved.”
Sounds like another one of those iHeartRadio hits, ladies and gentlemen.
Without singling out this one track (its not alone in its crime), we really deserve better lyrics to work with here, particularly if you want to be taken seriously. The small guitar solo apparition is almost aggressive, but the lack of ‘oomph’ from the rest of the band drags it back.
“On the Charts” wouldn’t sound out place from a given Duran Duran’s greatest hits, and is enjoyable merely for breaking from the style of the previous songs with serviceable synth-pop.
It’s difficult to appreciate this throwback performance when others (i.e. Daft Punk & Gorillaz) have done better at incorporating retro sounds & arrangements in modern masks on their respective “Random Access Memories” (2013) and “Humanz” (2017) albums.
“All of the Dead Girls” oddly sounds optimistic after the first few drum bars, & again, is at least mildly interesting to listen to since it breaks away rhythmically from the rest of the album.
“Ever Lonely” has some pleasant synth work, but the more I listen to this album, the more it churns into nu-new-wave easy listening. Not particularly challenging, and it takes an entire fourth of the album to get to the tracks that don’t make my thumb hover over skip.
At this point, the song structures sound like the equivalent of walking through a door and continuously arriving in the same room you just left.
“The Assailant” to it’s credit is probably the one song I might defend as worthwhile here, but again, it’s nothing revolutionary.
“The Preferred” is the song where the band realizes they almost forgot the immensely important hand-claps, otherwise this foray into post-irony retro tribute would simply be ironic without them. To eek out a silver lining: it’s at least under four minutes long.
“Slip on the Moon” starts with a few solo drum bars that wouldn’t be out of place in a demo at Robert Smith’s house the week before he recorded “All Cats Are Grey”. The chorus is not wholly homogeneous, but it blends into the background soon enough.
I’m assuming the band made this song after their first night wandering around wearing their shades amid the neon lights of 7-11’s & the nearest area resembling a Red Light District:
“This is the music we’ve always wanted to make!” one of them cheers behind the scenes, providing templates of enthusiasm & bravado for future interviews.
“Don’t Let Me Love” at least lets the album breathe slightly with a slower pace, with a lumbering thick bass giving you a reason to pay attention. The guitar effects dance dangerously close to the 1990’s, but I guess it’s been long enough to worship that decade as well. We are in a Dreamcar after all. Maybe the road we’re driving on is actually time itself？
Man, that’s deep.
We move on to “Do Nothing”, which tips it’s hat off to Collin’s gated reverb, & building minor hopes to something powerful, but then the chorus diverges & takes the road less harmful.
"Do nothing", indeed. It’s good to know they were at least looking both ways before crossing intersections while wearing their Ray Bans in the midnight hour of inspiration.
In the end, Dreamcar’s debut is a middling release with half of a personality, made by a band already asleep behind the wheel. They sounded more concerned with pushing out a release that is all imitation and very little substance.
The album very obviously sounds like the intersection of two separate forces behind once better bands: No Doubt’s machinery here sounds like they’re enjoying aping a bit of Warpaint, Duran Duran, & The Cure. Havok continues to do anything he can to distance himself from his previous work.
But to be fair, The Killers did kind of evaporate, so I guess somebody needed to be Brandon Flowers. It’s good to have goals in life.
The track-list can be described as a passenger on a long road-trip: you have no idea where you’re going, & sometimes there is a minor distraction ahead in the road. But these are distractions that are in a sea of unassuming, cloying compositions. The production is very clear & pleasant; if I’m going to be bored by something, it shouldn’t grate the ears in a physical manner.
The album’s cover’s aesthetic is the only thing that remains truly memorable, but even then its value is diminished by association.
Havok doesn’t mesh well either primarily due to his style of singing, which meanders like it’s being carried by a noiseless wind machine while the rest of the band is intent on being sonic anchors to their own influences.
This debut is not unlike a curious cough syrup that was made to address an ailment, but which ailment？ This remains a mystery. I’m a defender of at least knowing what you hate, but hate would be almost too strong a word for this album. “Irritated indifference” is a phrase more correct, yet not strong enough either.
This is a detour on the way down for members of both bands; the higher end of low. Dreamcar may eventually make interesting music, but not before a dire postmortem & a careful tune-up.
Recommended Tracks : “After I Confessed”, “The Assailant” , “Don’t Let Me Love”.
