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I love how so much of the music we are hearing today is like a time capsule shoebox buried then miraculously recovered. It’s got bits and pieces of the psychedelic sounds from the Seventies mixed with the digital playfulness of the Eighties along with grunge rock that surfaced in the Nineties. Add a pinch of poppalicious melodies from emo and soft punk that had us all in fetal position ten years ago, and you get an experimental, dark, rock n roll sound catchy and progressive enough to draw a crowd. This is the Fever Dreams my friends.
Harold King, mulit-tasking with vocals, keys and guitar, is actually behind the band’s label, Exemplary Records. He busts out post-modern poetry lyrics that play sidekick to Drew Durish’s mad guitar skills and Efrain Davila on the bass. Aaron Waters and Nick Whitfield pair up hand and kit percussion forming an altogether creepy combination of tracks that take the mind somewhere other than here. Their debut album, Tregan of Polycorns, was recorded with Whitfield handling kit percussion, and currently they’re performing with Steven Sponseller in that spot as a permanent line up. And they are quite a sight to be seen live. Their overall style is highly instrumental, and reminiscent of At the Drive-In. At first glance, the lyrics seem incomprehensible, but open your mind and there is a deep, painful understanding of the world very reflective of the musicians’ sound. Like an adolescent Maynard James Keenan.
Opening track “Trapezium” definitely does its job in setting the bar for the remaining five tracks on this full length album. It is intense, with no lyrics, and hills and valleys of strong and soft windows on each member. On the record you can hear how the kit kicks cool up against the hand drums, but it isn’t as noticeable in the live setting. The guitar is certainly the center of attention with in your face riffs that sit on top of everything else, yet allow for keys and bass to strut their stuff a time or two.
Each song flows up and down, keeping the listener’s attention through each lengthy track. “Untiedled” and “Contradictory Games” follow up adding the Fever Dreams’ otherworldly lyrics. I don’t know if I’m on another planet or lost in Purgatory. Layered vocals and harmonies convey a church choir-esque feeling. And “Mindfields” even gets the freaky old church organ sound right. And it is freaky. Initial upbeat melodies dance with darker undertones creating a progressive psychedelic sound seemingly born as the offspring of Emily Dickinson and the Rick Wright-era Pink Floyd.
In its entirety, the album does not falter at keepin’ it creepy yet complex, and consuming. Tregan of Polycorns moves from fast paced, strong changes of melody with keys and guitar into slower, hallucination-inducing baselines and chords. This, bolstered by unique percussion, gives the Fever Dreams a razor’s edge. The last track “Maze Song” is all of the above with a catchy beat hidden under repetitive, frustrating lyrics for the masses. Maybe the place they can take you is more like hell on Earth and not Purgatory or Mars at all. I think they found a way out of that place, and brought the story back with them.
Websites:
www.thefeverdreams.com
Myspace
