A fresh album release from Lunar Syrup hits with a wonderful and sort of vivacious blend of color and edginess as it takes elements of psych, dream, pop, progressive, and even indie rock, and rolls all of them together into one fat record and comes through almost like a concept album would in certain ways as songs tend to interconnect in different fashions and the whole thing creates such an atmospheric soundscape that you get engulfed by it.
The Dream State War album is absolutely massive and has lots of layers to it which show different sorts of characters and personalities in a way.
The guitar tones throughout this record are brilliant and sort of morph and transform depending on what the song is so the tonality of the record seems to change in certain ways as the whole thing unfolds and I find that to be quite brilliant because there are no two songs that are really the same.
This is a whole other world and when you listen to the album in full, it can pull you away from wherever you are and whatever you're doing and put you in this whole other world for a good chunk of time which I find insanely refreshing.
There are so many subgenres blended in throughout this record that you can't really put your finger on one single thing that you would call it in terms of a genre in general.
Sometimes guitars are drenched in reverb or have a certain kind of drippiness to them While others there on the forefront and songs have a crunchy or more rock sound.
Some songs feel like they're folk-influenced and almost have an Americana underbelly to them.
There's just a lot to soak in and it feels good to do that because when you are pulled into this world you sort of float alongside these songs in a way.
You also have great dream pop-style tracks, indie-pop-style tracks, and more.
What really gets you on a lot of these songs are the energies. The energy levels are completely addictive and electric half the time, so it feels almost like some of the songs were recorded live.
I can't help but love a record that delivers so many brilliant and beautiful soundscapes that can let you either drift, float, rock, or sing along.
Having said all that, there are tons of hooks, and they are memorable ones that end up bouncing around your head for hours after the songs have ended and the only way to satiate that is to go and listen to them again.
You can always say that's just smart songwriting, but I feel like this just comes naturally to the band.
These guys have a natural flow to how they do their thing, and you can tell that they do indeed feed off of each other as they're creating these songs or at least recording them.
This was warm and kind of welcoming in a strange way. Some songs even come off slightly nostalgic to me and I can't put my finger on exactly why.
The guitar work is Stellar throughout the album but so are the keys, drums, bass guitar, and vocals of course.
The vocalist really does an amazing job of delivering those hooks but also adding to whatever aesthetic the song is already bringing.
Every element of these songs seems to push the next. Or, I should say all the elements complement each other.
Listening to this record makes you want to go see them perform the whole thing live from beginning to end just because this kind of energy and aesthetic is captured on record so well, then seeing it live must be just awesome.
This was a gorgeous record that tied in character, personality, charisma, spaciousness, atmosphere, color, edginess, and honesty.
It's incredibly fun to soak in and I suggest that when you do listen to it you listen to the whole thing.
Listening to one or two songs from this record will not give you the full spectrum of what the album has to offer as a whole.
On that note, I might also add that listening to this record with headphones is absolutely, hands down the best way to do it.
Again, there are layers and all kinds of notes that float through the ethers of some of these tracks and the best way to really catch all of that is to listen with headphones.
This is a record that ends up sort of swimming around in the air that surrounds you and listening to it with headphones brings that to its fullest.
Definitely take a deep dive into this record when you get a chance and remember where you heard it first.
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