For whatever reason, during each listen of Enemy/Lover, the debut album from Indiana’s Dreamers of the Ghetto, my mind invariably references “Big,” the 1988 film starring Tom Hanks. The movie (if you’ve forgotten) centers around a boy who wishes he was big, only to find out when his dream comes true he wasn’t ready to be big at all. This rushing to be bigger than you are can sometimes lead to important missed steps in development.“I don’t get it,” Josh asks. “What’s fun about that?”
Everything about Dreamers of the Ghetto screams palatial — the sweeping atmospheric sounds, the voice of lead singer Luke Jones, the ranging chorus homages to U2 — but the grandiosity doesn’t hide the album’s monotony. I see what the band is trying to do, turning 1980s arena rock into 2010s indie romanticism, but I’m reminded of Josh Baskin, Hanks’ character in “Big,” when he’s confused by the merits of a new toy.
It doesn’t help when the opening track on a debut album is an instrumental. Explain this to me — you spend your whole life making the album of your hopes and when it finally comes to fruition through hard work and struggle, you open with two minutes of droning synths? It doesn’t make any sense.
The lyrics kick in on “State of a Dream,” a lively number which finds momentum when Jones does open his mouth. His voice carries a gritty edge with the timbre of great front men — except he has nothing much to say. The last two minutes of the song has him repetitively yelping “The state of the dream is not what it seems/ The state of the dream” against a background of music which doesn’t waver from the song’s outset. The state of the dream seems obvious to me, Luke — boring.
This weariness lingers into “Connection,” on which it appears the band’s plan for alleviating the previous song’s redundancy is to do the same thing in the next song — only longer. “Regulator” rights the listing ship, the steady hook and playful jangle guitar move along a song which shows moderate variation. It’s interesting how Jones doesn’t feel the need to fill the dead space with his voice – he sings at an even register but still manages to leave his stamp.
But the remainder of the album is a chore. “Phone Call” is perfect for a movie soundtrack – in 1986, while “Crime Scene” is another instrumental thrust in there for no good reason. It doesn’t transition one song into another and I can’t fathom what its purpose is. If you make it to “Tether,” the album’s final song, you still have seven-plus minutes to go before the album finally ends.
I’m not averse to long songs – one of my favorite songs is the nearly 10-minute long “Kashmir” – but “Tether” doesn’t go on any inventive tangents. It’s just goes and goes and goes nowhere.
There is potential here, but Enemy/Lover is the work of a growing band not ready to sit at the adult table.
