Album Review: Alice Boman - 'Dream On'

Encompassing the tender ability to make heartbreak and loneliness feel like a space for solace to blossom, Alice Boman’s debut album ‘Dream On’ is a harmonious blurring of the lines between intimacy and vulnerability.

“I have no control so I linger in these dreams of you before they turn into something new,” sings Alice in the shiver-inducing ‘The More I Cry’ which portrays a kind of emptiness that despite being patently about loss and heartbreak doesn’t contain an ounce of loneliness. She sighs in a harmonic way before declaring “everything reminds me of you” and, in a hypnotic way, shakes you to the very core. Fleeting back and forth between a lingering yearning and absolutely delicate disdain, every breath of hers counts for something that is heavier than the action betrays — ‘This Is Where It Ends’ being a perfect example of the solemn melancholic fragility in a voice which wavers on every exhale.

Despite the soporific delivery, there is a static which pulls a kind of electricity and sense of life throughout each song. ‘Don’t Forget About Me’ starts in a way that is awakening from the lulling of the completely submissive and confessional ‘Who Knows’. It comes across ever so slightly more upbeat with a bass line that feels as though you’ve been interrupted in a moment of solitude by the echoes of a house party in the flat downstairs from yours. In all of its simplicity, ‘Dream On’ is texturally rich and has a wealth of elements for your mind and ears to devour; from the wistfully ethereal ‘Everybody Hurts’ to ‘It’s OK, It’s Alright’. There’s something kind of Twin Peaks in the hint of sultry mysticism that comes from the latter: “every nerve in this body is aching for your touch. I hunger for it.”

Alice Boman just goes to show that heartbreak and longing is far from one-dimensional. It is a multifaceted thing of the flesh that reaches down to the core of your being, determined to shake up everything you once thought you knew of yourself, and most importantly to ensure that you are moved. 

Words by Tyler Damara Kelly

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Alice also tours the UK/EU in February, returning to London to headline the Union Chapel on 25th Feb:
17 Jan - Groningen, NL - Eurosonic @ Plato Record Store
17 Jan - Groningen, NL - Eurosonic @ Forum
14 Feb - Malmö, SE - Babel
15 Feb – Copenhagen, DK – Hotel Cecil 
18 Feb – Berlin, DE – Kantine am Berghain
19 Feb – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso
20 Feb – Paris, FR – Le Pop-Up du Label
21 Feb – Brussels, BE – Witloof Bar
23 Feb - Brighton, UK - The Latest Music Bar
24 Feb - Manchester, UK - Gullivers
25 Feb – London, UK – Union Chapel
3 Apr - Göteborg, SE - Pustervik
5 Apr - Stockholm, SE – Dramaten *sold out*
Tickets available at https://www.aliceboman.com/tourdates