Album Review: Dreamer Boy - ‘All The Ways We Are Together’
Dreamer Boy chronicles the peaks and troughs of a rose-tinted love affair in his lucid new LP ‘All The Ways We Are Together’.
Themes of love and nostalgia, reminiscent of singer Zach Tayor’s previous EP (‘Love, Nostalgia’) are familiar Dreamer Boy fare, yet ‘All The Ways We Are Together’ is stylistically something of a departure. While the former album leans towards more of a classic R&B vibe whereas this new record plays around with more digital effects and synthesised sounds.
According to singer Zach Taylor, the person behind the Dreamer Boy persona, this is a project directed by an ‘anything is possible’ spirit and self-belief shines through on each of the album’s 16 tracks, which are grounded in pop without shying away from more ambitious, experimental elements of studio production.
A sonic encapsulation of a new dawn in an alien world, title track ‘All The Ways We Are Together’ kickstarts the album with a gentle piano melody pierced periodically by a pulsing synth and strange found-sound vignettes. This hazy opening gives way to a smoothly plucked electric guitar, backing Taylor’s uncanny vocals as he proclaims his manifesto: “What kind of music do you like to listen to? What inspires those thoughts in your head? I wanna know how you came to be who you are.”
A feeling of nostalgia is dotted throughout the album (some of it perhaps unintentional, like references to hanging out in bars), and the mood of the record rises and falls as we are carried through daydreams that flit between rosey contentment and lovelorn melancholy.
The album’s fifth track ‘Bike’ begins with a tentative pastoral melody and is a delicate bit of respite from the more soul-searching portions of the record. The lyrics are minimalistic and feel bittersweet: “Aren’t you happy that the sun came out today?”, “I’ve got a new bike, you’ve got a new boyfriend”.
Others like ‘Joy’, ‘Shoreline’ and ‘Mesa’ feel more like classic Dreamer Boy, with an R&B flavour and allusions to beauty and romance.Taylor presents himself lyrically as a gentle soul, offering affirmations like “Keep your head up baby, you’re doing fine.” Similarly sweet, ‘Let’s hold hands’ (a collaboration between Taylor and R&B artist Melanie Faye) has a charming lo-fi feel and it’s minimal instrumental backing makes the beat, vocals and electric guitar solo pop.
Spice and drama abound in the mix of light, gentle sounds like Taylor’s vocals, soothing pianos and guitars, and an array of studio effects. Distorted instruments, ethereal synth sounds, trap beats, disjointed samples and pitch-shifting autotune set the album apart from previous Dreamer Boy releases. ‘Lightspeed’, a track that calls to mind ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weekend, will appeal to those hungry for 80s revival synthpop and a soundtrack for late night drives.
The album comes to a sober end with All Or Nothing, a tune that sounds a little like an answer to the question “What if T-Pain joined a psychedelic rock band?”
With reflective lyrics like “I don’t recognise my face”, closing track ‘All or Nothing’ explores the passage of time, with a sense of regret and resignation. It’s a sobering end to the album and a melancholy come-down from the headiness of the cloudy love affair documented across the album. The last moments of the track are delivered in an ‘acoustic’ style like an autotuned spoken-word poem, an inventive juxtaposition with the heavy texture of the proceeding tracks.
Taylor has explained the April 22nd release as holding particular personal significance. Earth Day aligns closely with his intention for the album to celebrate connectivity and community, and a global celebration of the planet we share certainly is one of the ‘ways we are together.’
Words by Joe Buncle