Crozier’s new single, “The Dream,” has arrived, and it’s rather like finding a surprisingly vibrant, yet faintly melancholy, postcard tucked inside an old, dog-eared travel guide for a country that might not even exist anymore. There’s an undeniable jauntiness to its classic rock bones – you can hear the phantom limb of a Wilbury shuffle in its gait, perhaps a smidge of early Kinks-ian observational wit in a melodic turn, all carried along by Alan Crozier and Nick Prentice on guitars. Prentice also steers the keyboards and drum programming, laying down a rhythm that insists on moving forward, even when the emotional compass seems to be spinning wildly.
But this isn’t just some breezy, open-road anthem. The vocals, a considered exchange between Crozier and Derek Yeaman, possess a peculiar, almost tender ache. It’s the sound of a wanderer humming a tune in an unfamiliar city square, the melody unexpectedly bright but their eyes searching for a landmark that’s stubbornly, infuriatingly, not there. The song speaks of that hazy pre-dawn state, of imagining new lands and potentially unknown companions. Yet, this dislocation, this finding oneself “in another country,” feels heavier, freighted with a longing that tastes oddly like unsent letters or the metallic tang of an almost-remembered foreign coin.
Is this “dream” a blueprint for future joy, or a palimpsest where cherished, possibly unreliable, memories of a lost love are being smudged by the fog of their own making? The narrator seems to be sifting through the beautiful, perplexing wreckage of a past connection, questioning if its warmth was ever truly theirs to hold, or just a particularly vivid hallucination sparked by the lonely echo of a foreign street. It’s akin to suddenly recalling the exact, unique smell of rain on hot cobblestones from a trip taken years ago – vivid, yet unplaceable, unshareable. This up-tempo current tugs you along, a hopeful pulse beneath the swirling confusion, but the central query lingers, exquisitely unresolved.
So, if one were to fully step into this dream Crozier has constructed, would the path ahead clarify, or would you simply find more exquisitely muddled maps leading to somewhere you only think you remember?
