After the Dream You Are Awake is the fourth full album from Georgia-based indie-group pacificUV. As its title suggests, the album, which appropriately fuses mellow shoegaze, psychedelic dreamsound, and experimental space-rock, is a study in the lingering sensations and emotions after one awakens from a long, unusual dream. And it succeeds in producing a wondrously beautiful, lasting soundscape.
Opening with an indelibly bright, stratospheric swirl of sound, “24 Frames” drops into moody, minimalist vocal refrains while reverbed drums strike with propulsive energy. A tremulously high-wailing synth and sonic flutters eventually overtake and establish the album’s slightly psychedelic dream-setting. The mellow “Christine” aches with love-marred vocals, poetic lyrics and a gentle trickle of accompanying guitars. The synth-swallowed sounds of “Eyes Without a Face” and “Russians” flow with nocturnal yearning and lysergic lyrics.
Latter tracks carry touches of the minimalistic moodiness characterized by The xx, particularly in the dreamy drops of “I Think It’s Coming.” But a merging of style and form comes in the very last two tracks “American Lovers” and “I Wanna Be You.” The former carries something classic about its bright, synth-rock sound, and though the vocals imbue it with low-energy, it conveys a sense of life’s mysterious and magical progression. The latter crafts vast spaces, stratospheric lyrics, and swelling shines while incorporeal voices yearn for that unachievable unison of spirit. Both are wrought with emotive complexity, and demonstrate the power of the band’s sound. But as the lyrics tell us, the “dream won’t last” and we must move on knowing that, as with a fading dream-sensation, we won’t be able to carry around with us the feelings imparted by this wondrous sound forever.
