For some Paisley Underground fans, Crashing Dream – the second full-length album by scene stalwarts the Rain Parade – was a letdown. Originally released in 1985 on Island Records, Crashing Dream failed to meet the label’s sales expectations and didn’t reassure the band’s fanbase. It’s often considered a slick, typical major label sell-out.
Tosh, we say. Crashing Dream boasts the same level of craft and heart as the band’s acknowledged classic Emergency Third Rail Power Trip. Though the production is certainly cleaner and fuller, the difference isn’t enough to detract from the quintet’s signature sound, which always favors memorable melodies over psychedelic weirdness in any case. (Folks who wish the artists under the Paisley Underground umbrella would simply ape sixties psych are missing the point entirely.) Besides, Rain Parade is a song band, one that creates the spine first before adding the limbs. Band founder David Roback may be gone (having departed before 1984’s Explosions in the Glass Palace EP), but guitarist Matt Piucci and bassist Steven Roback have always been equally able tunesmiths, and have no problem stepping up to fill the void. (The elder Roback was never the most prolific of the band’s three writers anyway.) The delightfully poppy “Fertile Crescent,” the rich “Gone West,” the dramatic “Shoot Down the Railroad Man,” and the rocking “Don’t Feel Bad” stand as just the tip of the iceberg of cool tunes here, and that’s not counting the spectacular “Depending On You,” the album opener that’s as strong a song as the Parade ever produced. Crashing Dream is arguably as good as the Rain Parade’s celebrated debut.
This particular version is even better, thanks to the addition of live shots (including a handful from the band’s long lost live album Beyond the Sunset), a passel of cuts from the band’s long out of print Demolition that were intended for the follow-up to Crashing Dream, and demos for Dream itself. “My Dog’s Dream” and the surprisingly heavy “The Sniper” point to a promising next step in the band’s evolution. This reissue proves that Crashing Dream is an essential a document in the world of both the Rain Parade and the Paisley Underground.
