For whatever reason, during each listen of Enemy\/Lover, the debut album from Indiana\u2019s Dreamers of the Ghetto, my mind invariably references \u201cBig,\u201d the 1988 film starring Tom Hanks. The movie (if you\u2019ve forgotten) centers around a boy who wishes he was big, only to find out when his dream comes true he wasn\u2019t ready to be big at all. This rushing to be bigger than you are can sometimes lead to important missed steps in development.\u201cI don\u2019t get it,\u201d Josh asks. \u201cWhat\u2019s fun about that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Everything about Dreamers of the Ghetto screams palatial \u2014 the sweeping atmospheric sounds, the voice of lead singer Luke Jones, the ranging chorus homages to U2 \u2014 but the grandiosity doesn\u2019t hide the album\u2019s monotony. I see what the band is trying to do, turning 1980s arena rock into 2010s indie romanticism, but I\u2019m reminded of Josh Baskin, Hanks\u2019 character in \u201cBig,\u201d when he\u2019s confused by the merits of a new toy.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t help when the opening track on a debut album is an instrumental. Explain this to me \u2014 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\u2019t make any sense.<\/p>\n
The lyrics kick in on \u201cState of a Dream,\u201d 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 \u2014 except he has nothing much to say. The last two minutes of the song has him repetitively yelping \u201cThe state of the dream is not what it seems\/ The state of the dream\u201d against a background of music which doesn\u2019t waver from the song\u2019s outset. The state of the dream seems obvious to me, Luke \u2014 boring.<\/p>\n
This weariness lingers into \u201cConnection,\u201d on which it appears the band\u2019s plan for alleviating the previous song\u2019s redundancy is to do the same thing in the next song \u2014 only longer. \u201cRegulator\u201d rights the listing ship, the steady hook and playful jangle guitar move along a song which shows moderate variation. It\u2019s interesting how Jones doesn\u2019t feel the need to fill the dead space with his voice \u2013 he sings at an even register but still manages to leave his stamp.<\/p>\n
But the remainder of the album is a chore. \u201cPhone Call\u201d is perfect for a movie soundtrack \u2013 in 1986, while \u201cCrime Scene\u201d is another instrumental thrust in there for no good reason. It doesn\u2019t transition one song into another and I can\u2019t fathom what its purpose is. If you make it to \u201cTether,\u201d the album\u2019s final song, you still have seven-plus minutes to go before the album finally ends.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not averse to long songs \u2013 one of my favorite songs is the nearly 10-minute long \u201cKashmir\u201d \u2013 but \u201cTether\u201d doesn\u2019t go on any inventive tangents. It\u2019s just goes and goes and goes nowhere.<\/p>\n
There is potential here, but Enemy\/Lover is the work of a growing band not ready to sit at the adult table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For whatever reason, during each listen of Enemy\/Lover, the debut album from Indiana\u2019s Dreamers of the Ghetto, my mind invariably references \u201cBig,\u201d the 1988 film starring Tom Hanks. The movie (if you\u2019ve forgotten) centers around a boy who wishes he was big, only to find out when his dream comes true he wasn\u2019t ready to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[484,485],"class_list":["post-1523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-dreamers-of-the-ghetto","tag-enemy-lover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions\/1525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}