Dreamend
Maybe we're making God sad and lonely
( Graveface ) 2005

So how is Dreamend going to match or surpass the visual & audio effort as if by ghosts from last year? Well, the trio would release Maybe we're making God sad and lonely, of course - this 6-track spectacle of twinkling 'life-breath'. With two 8+ minute designs ("a place in thy memory", "new zealand" - the latter being a split capture of Dreamend improvisation - 10 full minutes of it), you have plenty of time to dim the lights, spark some emotion (or simply light a candle - it's your life) and reasonably lose yourself in the atmosphere adapted from instrument to tape found here.

For most of the album, not a word needs to be spoken by the band itself - in the seasoned capture of Japan's Mono (minus the strings), yet there are moments when a story could do the textured 'ambiance' positive - like "In Her Little Bed We Lay Her". This repeat player - combining the goosebump team of bells / glockenspiel (possibly), some slide instrumentation and a buried layer of synths is displayed while a woman recounts a ghost story from the Civil War era to her friend. As she puts it in the beginning, "I'd like to tell you a ghost story that'll really raise the hair on yer head".. . yes, it does. I have replayed this track alone more this year than any other album combined, it's the precise formula of a band incorporating their unique sound and infusing dialogue to create a work of art. "Iceland", one of 3 compositions where the band opts for an audio microphone is properly titled. A landscape of the Dreamend guitar / gentle drum & cymbal / "dream state" swirl passes through a filter of ethereal vocals that treat each other to make you yearn to compare Dreamend to someone.. . - but you honestly know in your blissful heart that doing so would be all wrong. Follow that with the brief rocker that calls herself "Mary Cogswell & Fred Vaillancourt" - it lasts long enough for a females captured voice to state "I don't know.. . what's real any more" (I second that - medication can help) before Dreamend explode into assault territory; full drums & all six strings. A perfect freeze frame of a band inventing grand, illusive schemes.

The recording notes reveal Maybe we're making God sad and lonely was captured entirely in one evening, and only revisited on 2 occasions to add guitar and voice - that, itself, is a major fucking feat.

All wrapped up in the eco-friendly Arigato Pak! that has become the new digipak of late, original artwork and album title by William Schaff (GY!BE, Okkervil River) surrounds the disc - truly one of the greatest & most original offerings 2005 will see.

Buy it, hold it, hear it, keep it. Repeat steps 2 & 3 daily. Oh - me and that God cat had some beers last night - she's doing fine, just waiting for 2008 like all the rest of us peaceful brothers and sisters.

+ kaleb :: (08.29.05)