If “Dream Hangover,” my first encounter with Dream Bodies was an incredible blend of ethereal sonic washes and danceable beats, a balance of grace and groove, the new one, “Eclipse,” errs more on the side of the latter. Groove is the thing!
But that was always the key with music made on the gothic/darkwave side of the post-punk crucible, from which Dream Bodies undoubtedly takes its cues. Whereas most music circling the consumer at that time was still based on old blues riffs and six-string traditions, goth came from somewhere else, somewhere dance-infused and digitally adventurous, somewhere new, somewhere other, and that is what we find echoing throughout “Eclipse.”
It is a track built of beguiling outsider vibes and beautiful sonic otherness. It drives on motorik energies and shimmering guitar waves and is grounded in cool, clinical beats and cascades of bass synth. It is brilliantly otherworldy, trippy, and lysergic, certainly apt for a song that takes as its theme the notion of altered states, dreams, and esoteric thoughts.
Add to all that Steven Fleet’s stark Ian Curtis-esque vocal deliveries and you find yourself with something that resounds with the familiarity of the past yet breaks new ground, certainly because all musical styles are cyclical, to some degree. Therefore, the time has come for everyone to once again embrace those chilled and sharp-edged sounds that were the sonic playground of those black-clad musical adventurers of the early eighties.
Some might say that Dream Bodies lean too heavily into past glories. My response is that if something is good enough, if it qualifies as a classic sound, it never goes out of fashion.
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