Happy Reality – ‘Dreams’ (2024)
Happy Reality is a band from the Wrexham/Liverpool area in England and they have recently released their first single, ‘Dreams’. This four-piece group is fronted by Josh Hughes (who also plays rhythm guitar) and features Lewis Baker on lead guitar, Callum Thomas on bass, and Mike Jones on drums.
‘Dreams’ sounds like a meeting of shoegaze and jangle pop with the greater emphasis being on the former. Baker gives his lead guitar work here a big, reverb-infused sound over Hughes’s rhythm playing that sets a medium tempo for the song. With an appropriately dreamy setting, Hughes describes a sense of disconnection with the present waking world as he longs for the presence of someone who is far away. In the chorus, he sings: “I’ve been waiting years/ to see you in my dreams/ to help me with my fears/ and make me feel like it’s real.”
The verses in this song feel quite short, possibly because they are about as long as the chorus. Each verse sets up an aspect of the dilemma while the chorus finds resolution in what dreams have to offer. Baker takes a melodic guitar solo in the middle which breaks up four iterations of the chorus lasting the final two minutes of the song. This might wear on the listener, but tedium is averted because, unlike a riff or catchy line, the mood is the hook. While the guitars are awash in reverb, the treble timbre of Hughes’s voice cuts straight through it.
‘Dreams’ also balances melancholy and upbeat in large part thanks to Thomas and Jones. They ease into the song at the beginning but save it in the end by creating a push and pull with Jones’s cultivated thrashing and Thomas’s understated pulse. Those two generate greater levels of energy and corresponding interest that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
For more from Happy Reality, check out their Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Spotify.
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