ALBUM REVIEW: Someday – Dear Seattle
We live in difficult and testing times, and this has led to the growing stature of bands who are playing music that speaks to the very soul. Acts such as THE MENZINGERS and SPANISH LOVE SONGS are garnering critical acclaim for their songs that resonate with a generation who are feeling the pressures of adult life. Where these individuals once indulged in the snotty-nosed pop punk of BLINK 182 and SUM 41, using the songs to get through their teenage years, now they’re finding solace in the bands that talk about adult life, especially if they’re in their late 20s/early 30s. Australian quartet DEAR SEATTLE are one such band; formed in 2013 in Sydney, they’ve got two albums and one EP under their belt to date, but that’s just become three full-length releases; Someday, the band’s brand new record, is out now via Domestic La La, having been pushed back from June 17th.
The intent for Someday is set out from the very beginning – “With fear welling up in the corner of my mind / My lungs fill with hate as the birds in the night start to shimmer and fade / In front of my eyes, at the end of a painful night” sings Brae Fisher as Home explores the anguish felt being away from loved ones on the road. This is an album filled with emotion laid bare for all to see, wrapped up in music that, by contrast, takes the form of uplifting anthems waiting to be sung along to at live shows and festivals. It’s the embodiment of this style of ‘alternative indie’ and DEAR SEATTLE could well become the torchbearers for this in their home country very quickly. Previously released In My Head is a heart-wrenching discussion on the battles of mental health, “I say that I’m fine / But really I’m wishing / That the days would go by / And I’d stay in” croons Fisher, lines that will cut through even the hardest exteriors and speak directly to the heart.
Despite choruses and verses that are often steeped in melancholy and despair, that’s not always the case. The band have talked about how Someday is, certainly in part, an aspirational album, one to inspire hope that things will brighten ‘someday’, even if you’re going through a particularly difficult patch. The second half of the record is testament to this – Perfect Home is a more idyllic tune about chasing your dreams, that even when they sound far-fetched you’re able to achieve them, finishing with the line “A life we build is everything I’ve wanted”. The closing title track, a wonderful coda on the previous 40 minutes, is another one with a poignant closing lyric, this time “Someday we’ll be like them“, a sentence to show that, whilst your peers may seem further ahead in life than you, we are all running our own race and will reach our personal finish lines when the time is right. Then, there’s Aside Again – “One day you’ll see / Everything you wanted to be” is the main hook, a line that, even in a song about a lack of direction, is a light to hold onto and work towards, that every time the sun rises and sets, you’re one day closer to achieving your goals.
Given they’re relatively early into their career, it’s going to take a bit longer for DEAR SEATTLE to truly establish themselves and take their seat among the names mentioned above, but Someday is an excellent starting place – an album of pain and promise intertwined to create a message of hope that things WILL get better.
Rating: 7/10
Someday is out now via Domestic La La.
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