The debut album from London quartet Weird Dreams is hardly subtle. Its bittersweet homage to all things dreamily jangly, dizzily berate you as they feed from the very essence from indie pop. You see, Weird Dreams like 60s psych, and you can’t miss it.
Almost every year we get one; recently there were The Thrills, Spectrals, and before that early REM, even The Smithereens. Bands who seem to understand the harmonious origins of indie while respectfully plundering The Byrds and Brian Wilson in order to get the right level of tremolo from their Rickenbackers.
What Weird Dreams have achieved with Choreography, however, goes beyond mere nostalgia and hustles its plumage as a timeless pop record, wise beyond its years. It’s a record which could have been written any time over the past three decades, yet manages to sound current and lively.
This is partly due to its 60s core merely being stimulation to what is essentially a post-punk record. The Beach Boys melodies heard buried in Holding Nails quickly give way to Faceless’ angular chorus-laden riff and Devo bass, framed in a Ride coating, allowing it to avoid being just another sunshine merry melody.
Choreography’s triumph is this ability to merge breezy harmonies and fractious melancholia, as if peering behind psychedelia’s sheen to reveal a squalid den of iniquity and making it seem glamorous; perfectly suiting singer Doran Edwards’ David Lynch influences. An influence they seem keen to hammer home as though giving extra kudos.
Lynch’s touch is obvious to see as Edwards mistily elucidates: “I live in a bullshit building where the party never stops, I’m frowning because this town is just a hotel filled with nothing much”, during Vague Hotel, highlighting the juxtapositions which often lay beneath the obvious. Be that the annoyance of constant fun, or the secret perversion of the nuclear family. There’s even a touch of Ballard’s High Rise in there.
The Satan lamenting 666.66 and post-pubescent angst of Suburban Coating further nestle Weird Dreams as kitchen sink narrators with a jaunty sidestep, straight from Love Not Money era Everything But The Girl (listen to Anytown’s tremolo).
Be it post-punk, bedsit indie, or the ethereal gloom of the Pale Saints, Weird Dreams certainly have one foot in the 80s, yet it jitters with a Big Sur-noir which makes Choreography a constantly intriguing record.
It runs out of steam toward the end, as is the way of so many albums nowadays – filling the first half with the bangers – but this is not too detrimental. Further experience will give them the confidence and knowledge to produce a full album of quality. Its weakness should be construed as future potential.
Weird Dreams’ influences are hard to ignore, yet there are never ransacked. Rarely are inspirations honoured so reverently but Choreography manages it with the utmost grace.
8/10
by David Newbury
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