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Although usually content to be a self-contained unit, collaborating with Mark Gardener for three songs on the new album, Whitelined, seems such an obvious step. Although both parties are very much their own entities, there is plenty of sonic overlap between the sounds that multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ryan Policky and guitarist Erik Jeffries make as A Shoreline Dream and Mark’s own songwriting with and beyond the iconic Ride.
A shared sonic vision is obviously essential, but that doesn’t mean that said vision dwells on either past, neither a rehashing of Ride’s sound nor a retracing of A Shoreline Dream’s rich back catalog. Visions, by their very nature, are about looking ahead, they are premonitions, they are a glimpse of the future, and Whitelined is nothing if not the sound of both parties pushing forward into pastures new.
If the opening, titular, track sees the band in all their dense and deft, intense and euphoric, lysergic and luscious, soundscaping and shoegazing majesty, a creative salvo of half-heard lyrics and squalling sonics, “Everything Turns” is more song-orientated. But never at the expense of exploration and experimentation.
It is between these two points that the album ebbs and flows, between the more untethered and intense and the slightly more conventional and accessible. If “Fear” is built on thick swampy tones and thick textures, then “Written in Dust,” the latest single, pushes towards something more groove-driven, and if “Lost of the Words” is a spiraling, hallucinogenic post-punk piece, then “A Hollow Crown” is the sound of that same post-punk spirit looking for a more commercial outlet…although I’m sure nothing is that clear cut or calculated as I make it sound.
As always, A Shoreline Dream has produced a gorgeous album, one that balances dense musicality with bursts of more mainstream aware sounds and blends beautifully crafted noise walls with liminal pop sonic adventure. And that is something that we need more of in the world.
Spotify
Everything Turns feat. Mark Gardener
Whitelined album order
Bandcamp
