Album: Dreamland Artist: Glass Animals Year: 2020
Starting in 2010, Glass Animals led by Dave Bayley is a psychedelic pop band formed of Bayley’s friends Joe Seaward, Ed Irwin-Singer, and Drew MacFarlane. Their first album ZABA (released June 9, 2014) led by lead single ‘Gooey’ (February 14, 2014) had quite decent press ratings averaging around a 7 out of 10 from music publications such as AllMuisc, NME, and Paste. Following this success, their second album, ‘How to Be a Human Being’ released two years later received an average 8 out of 10 from similar publications.
‘ZABA’ had been praised for its use of tropical percussion in forms of R&B, with sprinklings of hip-hop baselines but with pop melodies and vocals. ‘How to Be a Human Being’ however, changed their formula working much more with the successful pop and hip-hop aspects of their previous album and traded tropical production for heavy sample-based melodies. These samples are all based on stories of fans and bystanders that the group had met on their previous tour, hence the album’s name. “I’ve ended up making my own characters, really, sometimes taking little pictures of these other stories I’ve heard. Lots of people have told me stories about mental health, and I kind of merged them together to make something that hopefully comments on mental health in quite a broad way.”[1] Bayley tells Atwood Magazine.
Bayley takes this energy and motivation to a theme and pushes that to eleven when tasked with making an album of similar or exceeding caliber to his last with one major obstacle, the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did the band deal with their drummer Joe Seaward sustaining major brain damage for a long period of time due to a cycling accident, but they were also now quarantined to their homes with their loved ones and forced to make music in this new climate, separated from each other. This and the theme of love, both lost and found are what fuel the veins of ‘Dreamland’.
The title track is a dreamy airy introduction to an album discussing the fast-paced, and uncontrollable nature of society, especially in 2020. The following track, ‘Tangerine’, is a great pop-dance track setting up themes of love for the album talking about the longing for the person someone close to Bayley once was. This track also touches on how easily money and life events can change a person.
Separated by the first of the “home movie” interludes, the next track ‘Hot Sugar’ talks about on how you can love someone, without it being ‘true love’.
‘Space Ghost Coast to Coast’ discusses, with great instrumental and lyricism on how one of Bayley’s friends who participated in a school shooting is asked how and why he did it. This is sprinkled in with multiple 90’s nostalgia references fueling this album.
‘Tokyo Drifting’ is a heavy track focusing on how easily one can create personalities as Dave creates one of a drug-addicted party monster, written by a twenty-something Jewish young man, interspersed with heavy trap-inspired beats.
Turning back to the topic of relationships, the next track ‘Melon and the Coconut’ is a sweet love story about how one person decides to show the other how much they mean to the other when the other is having doubts about their relationship. Meanwhile ‘Your Love (Deja Vu)’ is a pop dance track all about how you know some relationships aren’t right for you, but you can’t seem to escape.
Following this theme, Both ‘Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth’ and ‘It’s All So Incredibly Loud’ discuss talking to your partner about the fact that the relationship may not be the best thing for one or both of you. The former discusses the fact that sometimes people change for the worse, with the ‘waterfalls’ per se being a symbol for the words we say uncontrollably during these kinds of tell-all arguments where these kinds of discussions come up. Meanwhile the latter discusses that moment of silence where you say something you know that’s going to hurt them, but that needs to be said, where that silence is ‘so incredibly loud’. Both of these tracks are juxtaposed with decently upbeat instrumentation.
After another ‘home movie’ interlude, ‘Domestic Bliss’ describes Bayley discussing with another close friend the misunderstanding in his mind as to why they stay in an abusive relationship.
‘Heat Waves’ talks about a theme brought of previously on the album of losing someone to a change in personality, although yet again this is paired with an awesome dance beat and infectious chorus.
After our final ‘home movie’ we’re treated with our closing track ‘Helium’, bringing all the melancholy-ism around relationships back around full circle and looking at it from a much more positive outlook, and how despite things not working out between two people, life can still continue. People can still move on.
This is a great example of how Glass Animals can take a theme, whether tropical R&B, sample-based real-world ideas, or quarantined longing and lost love, and just run with it.
Dreamland gets an 8/10
Follow Glass Animals on:
Stream below on Spotify:
A Dose of Luke 