Dreamtime

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After some great reissues of Dreamtime’s early records on Cardinal Fuzz / Captcha. The former label teams up with the ever growing catalog at Skylantern for the band’s latest release. The Brisbane psych purveyors dig deeper than ever into the abyss for their latest LP, pushing their murky, scorched-sky sound into a much wider arena. The band have had an itch for expansiveness before, but with this record they tend to stretch for epic in every direction. The sheer size of Strange Pleasures makes it a bit daunting, to be honest. The band have the chops, as one would hope, but to sit down and digest the album is a feat of strength. The average track is around six to seven minutes, often pushing past eight and upwards of eleven.

That’s not to say that the band uses their time frivolously, or that the length ever becomes a slog. Its indulgent, but they’re indulging for many of the right reasons. They weave in loads of heatsick guitar, traversing the aird terrain that haunts psych stalwarts like Barn Owl or Eternal Tapestry. They veer into some of the psych-wah fringe that filled out earlier visions of Sun Araw as well, though they aim for a bigger sound than any of those (which in Barn Owl’s case is saying something). They tackle many of the longer tracks on Strange Pleasures as if each might be the album closer, building to a storm of heat and rumble and hedonistic fury. They stray into the abstract on the distinctly liquid “Gamma Globulin” before ending things with a hip-slung amp blast that tumbles the tower to the ground. Its the band reaching for their most ambitious stabs, and way more often than not, landing them handily.




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