The third and final single to be taken from DREAMWELL’s upcoming sophomore album is streaming everywhere now. The track – titled All Towers Drawn In The Equatorial Room – features Nick Holland from Wounded Touch, and has an accompanying video which can be viewed below. The album, In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You, is due for release on October 20 – digitally, as well as on vinyl and CD. Pre-orders are available now.
Of the new track, vocalist KZ Staska comments: “This is one of the bleakest songs I think I’ve ever written. I wrote an early version of these lyrics stream of consciousness style at the onset of a severe depressive episode. I remember writing until I felt done, walking away, and coming back to read what I wrote. I remember feeling really uncomfortable when I read the line “I would bash my skull against a brick wall if you told me happiness might leak out.” I hated that a line like that came out of me organically, without thought. I knew that discomfort was important. I had to rewrite a lot of it to give it structure and make it make sense once music was written, but I made sure to keep that line exactly as I wrote it.
“This song uses the tarot and astrology imagery most heavily. It’s about being so desperate for a single shred of hope that I turn to things I don’t even believe in to try to find it. I tried to capture that same horrible depressive energy I felt when I wrote the song in the music video, but incorporate more of the ritualistic occult imagery from the narrative into it as well..”
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.
DREAMWELL will play the following shows, with more live dates to follow:
21 October – Dusk – Providence, RI<
2 November – Turbo Haus – Montreal, QC *
3 November – Bar Orwell – Toronto, ON *
4 November – Pleasant Underground – Detroit, MI **
5 November – Downstairs Subterranean – Chicago, IL **
7 November – Aquarium – Fargo, ND +
8 November – Cemetery Ridge – Minneapolis, MN +
9 November – TBA – Milwaukee, WI +
10 November – Black Circle – Indianapolis, IN +
11 November – Roboto Project – Pittsburgh, PA +
12 November – TV Eye – Brooklyn, NY>
< w/Usurp Synapse & Frail Body
* w/ Lowheaven
** w/ Bleached Cross
+ w/Blind Equation
> w/ Gospel