ALBUM REVIEW: Dream Eraser – No Lights

Thinking of San Francisco’s Bay Area is like summoning a thousand perfect sunsets as the street lights turn on and the sky begins to take on its evening purple makeup, rolling concrete hills for miles on end. This is what NO LIGHTS attempt to capture in their debut album Dream Eraser, this environment seems to be the only defining aspects of the debut translated through dreamy sonics. Where there are supposedly influences of hardcore and metal of the Bay Area’s culture mixed in with the slower post-punk setting, they’re seemingly nowhere to be seen, so what is there to be discovered in Dream Eraser?

Sparrows begins by building that starry ethereal space in which everything exists, where time is bendy and spills over the sides of the song. Frontman Matt O’Brien’s thin vocals make it all the easier to fall through the track and hide any of its defining edges in the introduction to the dream-rock album. On the contrary, following track Shallow Breathing is tied much more tightly, with O’Brien’s guitar having much more integrity for the moment and his voice growing coarser. 

Despite the slightly uninteresting start, Antenna offers some hope of something exciting with a jittery guitar and some excess energy left over where it was previously absent, but still it quickly evolves into a repetitive chorus and annoying high note again. If you’re expecting anything to jump out at you from here you’ll be sorely wrong; Dream Eraser has little more to offer in way of variety. NO LIGHTS desperately clutch onto attempting to mix these dream-like sounds with post-punk, going about it the wrong way by not recruiting instruments that could benefit the sound they’re pursuing. 

The record finds its biggest detriment in what it thought was its biggest strength: this one dimensional interpretation of the band’s hometown, that it is simply dreamy, like it exists in its own bubble. There’s a wealth of different types of culture that flood from San Francisco, from its rolling concrete hills that carry skate culture through the city, to the glorious music that exists within it. Hell, it’s home to one of the biggest queer communities in the world. With all of that source material and more to pick from, it’s not anywhere to be seen unless it’s pretty damn subtle. Sonically Dream Eraser’s formations are repetitive and grow boring very quickly, the odd moment it teases you with some hope of a ballistic moment that will be remarkable, but it doesn’t, instead opting to be absent in its willingness to leave a good impression and letting itself be subdued by that. 

If this was a lo-fi album or a relaxed indie moment it would be understandable, but it’s boasted that it pulls from so many different genres and experiences that it combines into a pointless amalgamation with no definition to it, and constantly you find that NO LIGHTS are stepping on their own tail. At least it’s alright to listen to, in parts. 

Rating: 4/10

Dream Eraser is out now via The Ghost Is Clear Records.

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