Words: Sofia Lavender-Callow
Photo Credit: Max Dowd

Psychedelic pop band The Dream Machine‘s third album has arrived and they’re just as unique  as ever. With their distinct ‘music that sounds like the very best bits from your own record  collection’ truly no one is making music like them. With a thirst for the past but modern  technology they’re carving out a space for themselves in no particular genre. Citing influences  from Texan ‘The 13th Floor Elevators’ all the way to Dr Dre, it’s a concoction of culture. 

Title track and first solo ‘Fort Perch Rock’ takes you head-banging into the album. Immediately  highlighting what the record is about, nostalgia, home and creativity. Being from the Wirral, they’re  heavily influenced by the salty seaside air and rocky shorelines. The short track is mantra-esque  and is a love song to their home. The next track ‘Flowers on the razor wire’ tows the line between  pleasure and pain in the musical breakdown of a relationship that ends in an emotional bridge.  The last and most recent single ‘Things that make us cry’ has the ‘weepy, romantic resignation  that made the soulful sadness of 60’s girl groups so magnetic’. 

The grove continues into ‘Angel Heart’ a dance-y track packed with adoration and longing. ‘If I  could be king’ keeps the sweet and sensual feeling in a slower track with drawn out vocals, gentle  drum taps and soulful electric tunes. The beat is brought back quickly with ‘Duck Bone Fever’s  cascade of drums and masterful guitar solo but the nostalgia and adoration still bleeds into the  following ‘I had a friend’. 

‘Joe’ turns grief to song in a tune where the music doesn’t appear overly somber, but we hear  McDonnell sing ‘i still hang on to every word you said ‘ about a person ‘far beyond’. Gut  wrenching lyrics ‘I have to live we don’t get to die’ and ‘we need you now’ show the toll a deep  loss has on a person and rings far too true for listeners who know this feeling. Following this, is  the dreamy soundscape of ‘Julie on the rocks’ which fits the track’s rawness and vulnerability.  The song, musically, sounds like drifting away which is perfect for thee subject matter. It’s a  highlight of the album, in the bridge McDonnell sings ‘I will break at your feet’, we feel his pain,  and it feels so familiar as he toys between hanging on and giving up.  

The dark, moody sound of ‘Night Owls’ once again stresses the bands range. The grunge-y,  Arctic-monkeys-esque track has an intense guitar leading the song and luscious vocals. Then  heading into ‘The First Bird’ an eight minute track where Mcdonnell screams ‘I think I’m flying’  with vocal effects of a 70’s metal band but over a smooth, heavily reverberated track. Finally, the  album finishes with ‘Best days of our lives’, an acoustic track that screams gratitude, love and  friendship despite all of the other experiences the band have lived through in the past year. 

Fort Perch Rock is an album that collates the soaring emotional range the band have experienced  in the year and a half since their last release. The disparity of every day life is expressed through a  myriad of musical styles as the band display the chaotic nature of being human through their  impressive ability to genre switch and their unrestricted creativity. They’re unique, whimsical and  wonderful, their skill, range and free spirit shines in not only every song, but the album as a  collective. Truly no one else is making music like The Dream Machine right now and the fearless  group deserve far more recognition.