Weird Dreams‘ first new release in roughly four years clocks in at exactly four minutes and in these four minutes it doesn’t concern itself with any significant forward movement. It rests comfortably in the ambiance that introduces it until it draws to a close, with only the fractured remnants of a slow-exposure guitar solo and a bare bones drum loop giving any further accompaniment to vocalist Doran Edwards’ occasional sighs. It doesn’t go far, but then it doesn’t need to.
For ‘The Ladder’ is in itself a true progression from their 2012 album Choreography, which was focussed entirely on rose-tinted reappraisals of The Byrds, The Beach Boys and the like. Here there is a much broader range of reference points, from the downbeat dream-pop of The Antlers through to the slow-burning electro-psych of Panda Bear and Polmo Polpo, and Weird Dreams are all the better for it.
