EP Review – Better Late by Dream Back (2022) (Self Released)
I first stumbled across the Dreamback solo project of Jamie Duddy on ‘pants night’. Such a night is a weekly event that consists total solitude in my mancave, in a T-shirt and my underpants, trawling through the darkest recesses of Bandcamp for new music, with a beer or three in my desk fridge. Sounds perfect? It really is.
Pant Night is elected on a night I “really” need to wind down, and this Better Late EP facilitates such a process with consummate ease. The middle tracks of Guided By Stars and Here I Go deviate any sense of quirk from Conor Oberst’s indie-folk acoustic vibe and caress incidental jangled riffs through a musical ether that drifts you towards that perfect sense of contentment you feel when you know you have an uninterrupted lie-in waiting for you in the morning. It’s that sort of simple pleasure. Like “Pant Night”.
The rest of the album moves away from such a wonderful lull and dazzles with subtle beauties. The title track is an absolute jangly indie-pop fest. Here, dulcet Stephen Malkmus-like vocals are drizzled all over the sort of languid, lucid jangle-pop that is so reminiscent of The Royal Landscaping Society.
Similarly Side takes the above lucid jangle-pop core and adds a slights sense of the monasterial production that frequents the choral qualities of the 3.A.M Again sound and accentuates such beauty with the perfect imperfections of bedroom-pop production.
The December month tends to struggle in terms of extended format releases as every act seems to feel it is obligatory to pander to their sense of ‘twee cheery’ and release a track about Santa. This release has restored my faith that us grinches can still get hold of decent music at Xmas time !
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