Dreamland

Bleak memories are retold here, and at times you really have to stick with Bayley with a sympathetic ear as the album extends to 16 tracks, including childhood interludes. But it’s delivered in an exuberant manner and, despite some very profound lyrics, songs such as singles Heat Waves and Your Love (Déjà Vu) would have had kids dancing at the festivals in the summer sunshine.

Glass Animals' most cohesive and satisfying album to date, Dreamland is a well-deserved triumph that's as rewarding for fans to hear as it was for the band to make.

The nostalgia would be overwhelming were it not for Bayley's ability to offset it with woozy, elastic beats. [Aug 2020, p.102]

Bayley’s voice – light, airy, mournful – makes you think of Peter Pan if he were forced to grow up. Thinking of childhood in such analytical detail can throw up wonderful memories, sure, but it can bring out dark things, too – things that tend to hang around in later life. It makes for a complex, thoughtful and moving record.

A brave and ultimately bold move, it’s hugely effective – direct yet sumptuously nuanced, ‘Dreamland’ is a triumph.

It’s a sun-drenched record of summer tunes that will sound even better when heard at festivals with a tinnie in hand. Yet look behind glittering shells of these tunes and you’ll find hugely personal stories, told with new strength and resilience.

It retains their hallucinogenic sound but injects it with more glimmers of autobiography than they’ve ever previously shared.

Dreamland’s best moments are propelled by slick drum machines and Bayley’s confidence as a frontman. His turn inward isn’t without humor and insight, but writing about other people on past albums provided a more enveloping experience, fleshing out imagined places and people with an intrigue that’s missing here.

Dreamland falls prey to the unfortunate mode of modern branding that conflates personal nostalgia with making a point. Glass Animals want to talk about The Way We Live, when it’s really just Let’s Remember Some Stuff.