Alt-J – The Dream (CARBS Remix Edition) (2022/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Alt-J – The Dream (CARBS Remix Edition) (2022/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:08:57 minutes | 756 MB | Genre: Indie Rock, Art Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Infectious Music

The body count on alt-J’s fourth album is high. At least three songs portray a death, another (“Losing My Mind”) explores the psyche of a serial killer, and “Get Better” is an intensely moving depiction of grief. That said, The Dream also delights in the pleasures of drinking Coke (“Bane”), instant attraction (“Powders”), and getting wasted at festivals (“U&ME”). “If you want to move people, it’s with storytelling,” singer/guitarist Joe Newman tells Apple Music. “You want to tell the best story, and that is by giving people both sides of the coin.” Here, that storytelling is set to characteristically adventurous music. The Leeds-formed trio finds improbable tessellations between pneumatic art-rock and Stravinsky, psychedelic folk and Chicago house, and Jimi Hendrix and Cormac McCarthy, binding those patterns with iron-strong hooks. “We’ve always seen ourselves as cowboy writers,” says Newman. “We don’t know how to write a pop song, but we know that we have catchy ideas. So we just sew them together, regardless of whether it makes much sense structurally. Maybe in this album, we’re also mastering the craft of writing more traditionally.”

Following a five-year gap between releases, English alt-rock trio Alt-J returned with something unexpected: a focused album with a handful of traditionally structured pop songs that some could say were radio-friendly. By no means a mainstream sellout, The Dream is the tightest attack the group have recorded to date, channeling their usual quirky tendencies into a clearer vision that veers between the comforting and the devastating. Loosely connected by tales of warm memories and cold crimes, these dozen tracks feature some of the band’s most evocative storytelling, whether that involves frontman Joe Newman embodying a struggling thespian-turned-drug dealer (“The Actor”), a justified murderer (“Happier When You’re Gone”), or even a tech bro striking big with cryptocurrency (“Hard Drive Gold”). Alt-J’s typical kitchen-sink approach to sonics hasn’t weakened, whether they’re dropping a trance beat and fevered chanting onto pastoral acoustic folk (“Chicago”), recruiting an opera singer and harpsichord for a dramatic thumper (“Philadelphia”), or employing a barbershop quartet to back a spare Thom Yorke-styled dirge (“Walk a Mile”). In addition to the expansive opener, “Bane” (which cleverly utilizes the sound of a soda can cracking open on a nostalgic snapshot of summer love), other highlights include the radio hit “U&ME” and the aforementioned “Hard Drive Gold,” a pulsing groover that might be one of the catchiest songs they’ve written thus far. On the other end of the spectrum, “Get Better” is a tender heartbreaker that features the most crushing lyrics on the album, facing loss and death with such elegance that it rivals the most mournful moments from Elliott Smith and Bright Eyes. While the record’s extended coda is more fizzle than comedown, there’s still plenty of beauty to be found in the latter third, and fans from all eras will find something to love at every turn. Their best since 2014’s This Is All Yours, The Dream finds Alt-J in top form. Despite being so lyrically death-obsessed, the beauty and warmth coursing through the album make it full of life and absolutely human. – Neil Z. Yeung

Tracklist:
1-1. Alt-J – Bane (05:10)
1-2. Alt-J – U&ME (03:18)
1-3. Alt-J – Hard Drive Gold (02:38)
1-4. Alt-J – Happier When You’re Gone (04:00)
1-5. Alt-J – The Actor (04:00)
1-6. Alt-J – Get Better (05:51)
1-7. Alt-J – Chicago (03:55)
1-8. Alt-J – Philadelphia (03:38)
1-9. Alt-J – Walk a Mile (06:29)
1-10. Alt-J – Delta (01:00)
1-11. Alt-J – Losing My Mind (04:42)
1-12. Alt-J – Powders (04:41)
2-1. Alt-J – The Dream (CARBS Cycles Remix) (09:40)
2-2. Alt-J – The Dream (CARBS Lucid Remix) (04:53)
2-3. Alt-J – The Dream (CARBS NREM Remix) (05:02)

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