Providence, RI based screamo ensemble, DREAMWELL, have today unveiled the second single to be taken from their upcoming sophomore album, In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You – due for release on October 20. Blighttown Type Beat is streaming everywhere now, and has an accompanying video that can be viewed below. The album is available to pre-order now; it will be available digitally, as well as on vinyl and CD.
Of the new track, vocalist KZ Staska comments: “The song tells the story of a character happening upon an abandoned home whose former inhabitants intentionally flooded it and died in the basement, and his horror as he hears voices coaxing him to do the same. It is an allegory for feeling so empty that you latch onto people and relationships you know are destructive and harmful simply because they are available to you. The music video reflects this by interrupting old home videos of a wedding with gruesome footage of things like dental and ocular surgery..”
In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You is the follow up to the well-received and self released debut album, Modern Grotesque.The patchwork, stop-start approach taken to create Modern Grotesque served a hard-won purpose as the band refined their line up and honed their sound. Their early trials by fire stood them in good stead as they started work with a clean slate and contemplated what would later take shape as In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You – their first foray into consciously and deliberately writing an album, start to finish. The result is a blistering take on screamo, with flourishes of post-hardcore and metalcore for good measure.
With artistic influence drawn from a multitude of genres, from doom to black metal. Some artistic influences – such as Botch or The Blood Brothers – are easily distinguishable, whilst others – such as Khanate, The Mountain Goats or Elizabeth Cotten – are buried deep in the DNA of DREAMWELL. The album was recorded at Format Audio in Dover, New Hampshire by Ryan Stack in September of 2022, bringing together a cohesion of sounds and ideas from a group of individuals operating perfectly in tune with each other.
Since their inception in 2017, DREAMWELL have been refining and reshaping the parameters of what screamo can be. On In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You, they have provided a structure within which their own chaotic take on the genre is able to flourish.