Album Review :: David Lynch - The Big Dream

David Lynch

The Big Dream

July 15 2013 (Sunday Best)

8.5/10


Words: Andrew Major


Taking a departure from his illustrious career as a director, the man behind ‘Blue Velvet and ‘Mulholland Drive’, David Lynch, brings us his second solo album; ‘The Big Dream’. Equally as experimental and challenging as his on screen efforts, The Big Dream is a journey through the dark side of Americana with all the brilliance and creative edge of Lynch’s imagination packed into it.

The album’s opening title track is a sauntering, lazy stroll through a barren musical landscape with Lynch’s distorted, nasal vocal leading the way. Electronic beats teamed with synthesized organ sounds and heavy sub-bass laces the track with current popular stylings while maintaining a personality of classic blues. ‘Star Dream Girl’ certainly doesn’t hold back with its blues influence. It’s all spiky guitars, shoegaze vocals and Black Key’s-esque thundering drums. There’s no doubting that Nick Cave has had a great influence on ‘The Big Dream’ in the way of vocal style and lyrics themselves; highly imaginative with a clear linear narrative and vibrantly cinematic.

‘Last Call’ reverses back to more electronic heavy production combined with delay and reverb washed guitar tracks and highly augmented vocals with tremolo, pitch shifters, the whole lot. As an overall piece of work, ‘The Big Dream’ is extremely easy on the ears despite its sometimes-aggressive electro edge and indefinably twisted lyrics; this in part has to be credited to the album’s producer Dean Hurley. The man behind the scenes on Lunch’s debut effort ‘Crazy Clown Time’ which all in all was a trip into insanity in comparison to the ‘The Big Dream’. The album is easy-going with just enough production wizardry to put the listener in a trance for fifty minutes or so.

‘Cold Wind Blowin’ is truly beautiful. More reverb than most would dare imagine helps create waves of atmosphere while Lynch’s vocals have been treated with some reverse delay to generate a very interesting feeling down the back of the listeners’ spine; intentional or not, it’s a masterpiece. Next up is a familiar track to most Bob Dylan disciples; ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’ gets given the full David Lynch treatment. The track itself seems as if it was made to be taken on by Lynch with his own vocals echoing those of Dylan’s; the same storytelling qualities shining through. The track itself is an overall more sinister affair, murky drums and more spaghetti western style guitars. Lynch’s vocals have really taken on a life on their own in ‘The Big Dream’, each track screams of personality and meaning.

As we reach the middle of the album, tracks ‘Wishin’ Well’, ‘Say It’ and ‘We Rolled Together’ offer up more of the same in many ways. ‘Wishin’ Well’ comes at you with some Massive Attack style break-beat drums and more sparse electronic instrumentation, while ‘Say It’ is one of the most stand-out tracks on the album: oozing with cool and perfect for wandering into a town somewhere near El Paso looking for the man responsible for kidnapping your wife. ‘We Rolled Together’ is back once more to the trip-hop beats and augmented vocal tracks, see a pattern emerging? Luckily this track is laden with bizarre guitar and synth effects and some even more bizarre lyrics, just about keeping the album together.

The bipolar nature of ‘The Big Dream’, being an amalgamation of classic heavy blues and up to date electronica, is something that will certainly welcome listeners and fans to it. However, I can’t help thinking that ‘The Big Dream’ may be more enjoyable when listened to on shuffle, I know it’s sacrilege to say but the album does become predictable in the way it switches between the two styles as it approaches its finale.

‘Sun Can’t Be Seen No More’ is hands down the heaviest track on the ‘The Big Dream’; Lynch’s vocals are really quite terrifyingly pitch-shifted to the point where he resembles a character from wacky-races (in the best way possible). ‘I Want You’ transcends the two previously mentioned genres perhaps more effectively than some earlier tracks with echoes of Nine Inch Nails creeping into the pulsating backing track. ‘The Line It Curves’ is a real joy. A lot lighter and brighter than the listener is used to and sounding like Pulp have necked a bottle of their favourite pills and gone to town in the studio; a refreshing injection of both musical nostalgia and more lyrical genius from Lynch.

The lights start to dim on ‘The Big Dream’ by the time we reach penultimate track ‘Are You Sure’. Any more laid back and it would fall over, you can almost count the bpm yourself but it’s perfect for Lynch’s whirring vocals and crystal clear guitar and synth sounds. Last, but not least, is ‘I’m Waiting Here’. A surprise vocal performance from Lykke Li gives the whole album an awe-inspiring send off, quite literally rolling the end credits of ‘The Big Dream’ as the cinematic nature of the record makes itself so very clear; an equilibrium has been reached and it’s time for us to return to our daily routines.

As a man clearly not scared to push the boundaries of creative art, be it cinematic or music, it is always a pleasure to receive Lynch’s exciting and evocative work. ‘The Big Dream’ incorporates many of his artistic traits in its thirteen tracks. Dark, intelligent, original and overall hugely entertaining. In contrast to ‘Crazy Clown Time’ which in effect came across as a film director trying his hand at music, ‘The Big Dream’ is a highly competent collection of songs by anybody’s standards. Until next time Mr Lynch.