Review Summary: Hopeful heartache
2011s breakthrough
Slave Ambient harkened back to a more innocent time, its hazy sonic landscapes that at first seemed a representation of joyous exuberance occasionally expanding into overwhelming walls of sound that hinted at an undercurrent of disenfranchised tension.
Lost in the Dream sees these pent up stresses brought up to the surface and fully realised, seeking catharsis in its meandering narrative, and in doing so bringing us one of the most meticulously crafted and engrossing albums of the year.
Much has been made of the fact that frontman Adam Granduciel wrote the majority of the record after going through a particularly heart-rending breakup, and
Lost in the Dream is more akin to
Cerulean Salt than
Blood on the Tracks, choosing to revel in its own misery whilst simultaneously celebrating its own tumultuous existence. A burnt out relationship, despondent lyrics, emotive guitar work,
Lost in the Dream contains all the traditional elements of the over-done indie break up album but the result is truly greater than the sum of its parts, somehow managing to bring a completely fresh take on the genre with the same washed out old ingredients.
Granduciel is a man who wears his heart, as well as his influences, not just on his sleeves but firmly etched into his skin.
An Ocean Between the Waves reimagines Springsteen’s story of jilted love
Backstreets after bitterness and disbelief have simmered into brooding melancholy, swapping jaunting, jazzy piano for soaring, visceral guitar lines that threaten to twist your stomach into fearful and gorgeous knots.
In Reverse opens with a sparse arrangement and loneful questioning reminiscent of Yo La Tengo’s
Shadows (“I don’t mind you disappearing” / “I don’t mind waiting in the shadows”), but it seems Granduciel’s shadows have given way to complete darkness, stretching and teasing out the gaps in the instrumentation until the song incrementally coalesces and understatedly erupts into blissful acceptance.
Granduciel has admitted to living with anxiety and depression throughout most of his life, but only recognising it for what it is throughout the last year. Long known for being a perfectionist in the studio, endlessly recording and re-recording, altering and throwing away,
Lost in the Dream sees these perfectionist tendencies turned inward, the chronicle of a man who is falling to pieces almost willingly, analysing and overanalysing himself in the pursuit of an answer that he knows not to exist, yet almost relishing in his own despondence. “Will you be here suffering? Well I hope to be” masochistically ends
Suffering, and as he repeatedly sighs “yeah” over a discordant piano and mourning sax as the track fades, you get the sense he is at home with his sorrow.
Not all is hopeful melancholy, however.
Burning repeatedly references light and dark, fire and water, soaring and sailing, illustrating the myriad of seemingly conflicting emotions we all know to be the inevitable lurches of a relationship in its death throes. “Im just a burning man, trying to the keep ship from turning over again”, how often are we afire with searing emotions whilst still trying to salvage the wreckage of a relationship that has passed long since hit its iceberg, knowing all too well that to simply let it go under would be the wiser course, but find ourselves unable to do so.
Sonically, much of the album is at odds with its, if not downright depressing, at very least sombre lyrics. When
Under the Pressure kicks off with an almost jubilant array of swirling, hazy guitars and pounding drums, one could be forgiven for mistaking the album opener for the soundtrack to a dreamy Sunday afternoon, rather than the nerve-riddled ode to anxiety it is. In
An Ocean Between the Waves Granduciel laments “I’m in my finest hour, can I be more than just a fool?” set to a toe-tapping drum beat before launching into perhaps the most infectious and uplifting guitar driven breakdown of the entire album, second only to the one that comes a mere 2 and half minutes later (side note - I challenge you to not nod your head as the driving drums and guitars flame out, and the ever-present underlying synths lend an 80s nostalgia that can’t help but worm its way into the pleasure centres of your brain). The already jump-up-and-down vigour of
Red Eyes is given an adrenaline injection only 1:48 in, with a victorious “whoo!” and subsequent frenzied guitar that launches it into one of the most joyful soundscapes on the album, belying this tale of abused trust and jilted love, “But you abuse my faith, losing every time but I don't know where”, “I can see it the darkness coming my way, well we're here.”
Yes,
Lost in the Dream is a break up album, but one tempered with hope and infused with exuberance, sufficiently self-aware to know the different between the finality of rejection and the possibility of redemption, and optimistic enough to believe firmly in the latter. Its a reaffirming celebration of the vast ranges of human emotion, and if you can celebrate the lows, how good must the highs be?
