Mundo Musique: Dream Boat - The Rose Explodes

Athens, Georgia’s Dream Boat has continued to impress us every time we hear something new from them. Their single “Way Out” was incredible, and they ended up on our favourite discoveries list. This week, they released The Rose Explodes. Dream Boat is the project of Page Campbell and Dan Donohue. In the past, Campbell played in Hope For Agoldensummer and Dan has collaborated with various Elephant 6 bands including Elf Power and of Montreal.

The Rose Explodes opens with the beautiful, shoegaze-esque title track, Campbell‘s voice is run through just the right amount of reverb, with beautiful harmonies and some really inventive use of Omnichord which seems to be popping up in more and more music recently. “Escape” is an electric song with a huge build. “Closest” is one of the best tracks on the record, it has an ethereal feel, with a lot of lush harmonies and an inventive use of electronics which give it a very hypnotic feel. “Never Die” is another great track, it’s got an acoustic element to it, and it’s a little slower with some great horns that sound very much like something you’d hear from The National. The penultimate track, “Way Gone” is absolutely epic, the ending to the song is just huge! And the finale “Say Goodbye” brings back that Omnichord we heard in “The Rose Explodes” and brings the album to an incredibly strong close.

The Rose Explodes is a beautiful record. There’s tension throughout and it goes through different feels, from epic to ethereal. If you look at the list of people contributed to the record, including Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel, James Husband of of Montreal, and Andrew Rieger of Elf Power, you’ll see that this record is deeply rooted in the Athens music scene, and full of incredibly talented musicians.