Dream the Electric Sleep
Beneath the Dark Wide Sky

“Dream the Electric Sleep combine 70s AOR and 80s Darkwave, with a spacey, heavy post-rock intensity. Influenced by Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Neurosis, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Tears for Fears, Soundgarden, and The Who, Dream the Electric Sleep have spent the last eight years crafting an expansive, eclectic sound.” So says the press sheet about this band now that they are releasing their third album that is said to make a clear shift in the band’s song-writing style and sonic quality. Beneath the Dark Wide Sky is the title of this new album and it is said to be inspired by photographs taken of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s by American photographer Dorothea Lange. Singer and guitarist asks himself: “How does art inform the way we understand the world we live in and can it motivate us to challenge and change our assumptions?” I think that the press information makes this album seem quite interesting and it has a cool cover art as well.

Musically I think that post-rock is the quick way to describe it but then you can add that the span over a rather wide musical landscape with progressiveness and many other smaller elements added to their post-rock. Good vocalist, even though he does not sound particularly unique compared with what we usually hear in similar music. The production is good and modern, and I like the soundscape. They have a fairly fresh sound, not going down the most well threaded paths and that is always positive. They do however; tend to make some long monotonous instrumental things in several of the songs and that it something that can be somewhat negative to the overall picture. That can also be said about the long playing time that is quite close to the hour and they do not really make the album overly varied so it can tend to feel a little bit on the long side.

I think that this is a good album, it has some really fine highlights but it also has some weaknesses. The monotonous parts in several of the tracks can make this album feel a bit monotonous and many times my mind tends to drift in focus away from this album and onto something completely different, it doesn’t fully attract my attention and it feels a little bit that it ends up not being quite there. Sure I can see that there is potential and they will probably find a fair bit of fans, they have also gotten some really strong reviews so if you like the similar bands we have listed I am quite sure you will like this one as well. I think that it is a good album to listen to even though it does not fully reach out to me.

The best tracks are the second track called Let the Light Flood In and the eighth track The Good Night Sky, those are really strong tracks. Dawn and the fourth track We Who Blackout the Sun is not so great, they feel very monotonous and I think the album could have been better had they skipped those tracks. Overall though I think they do fairly well and it could be an album worth checking out.

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