Dreamland: The Glass Animals album that shouldn’t have been

When life as they knew it came to a halt in 2018, Glass Animals had to rethink everything to get back to a recognisable sense of normal.

And then, November 2019 came along. It was a milestone moment for the band. Back before the idea of a global pandemic could have been conceived, the Oxford group were already well on the road to overcoming a massive curveball that had been thrown their way. 

On one particular November evening, the band was back on stage for just the second time since tentatively making their return to live performance, following drummer Joe Seaward’s recovery from a road accident that almost saw him lose his life. 

The show was also their first in Australia in some time, in a packed out Prince Bandroom in Melbourne. Sweaty bodies moved together, pineapples were thrown in the air, new music was road tested while the crowd favourites were rejuvenated. 

There’s a pause where frontman Dave Bayley stands at the front of the stage, emotional. The rest of the band takes the moment as a slight breather, wiping away sweat and rehydrating as the crowd hollers of praise. Bayley looks to Seaward and back to the crowd, thanking everyone for making the show such a special experience. 

At that stage, it was a miracle the band were even onstage and had gotten through a full set, let alone conceptualising a whole new album. While at that point, single ‘Tokyo Drifting’ proved a massive return to form,  the question remained: how does a life-changing event form the basis of a new album?

Fast forward to August 2020, and the answer is here in Glass Animals’ magical third record, Dreamland.

The road to its completion has been one marked by struggle and setbacks, though it’s in overcoming these things that has left Dreamland with added emotional weight.

Bayley has been open about the genesis of the album. When a truck collided with Seaward as he was cycling in Ireland in 2018, Glass Animals pulled the plug on all their touring commitments to focus on Seaward’s recovery. 

“I was in the hospital and the future looked terribly bleak.” he says. “I didn’t know if he was going to make it.” 

Spending time ruminating and reflecting on the what ifs and the unknowns of the situation led Bayley to lean back on more memories from his upbringing and adulthood; some nostalgic, some painful, some meditative. 

What has resulted is an album based in the acceptance and embrace of vulnerability. The release of Dreamland at this point of what has been a trash fire of a year also makes the album more impactful. 2020 has been unpredictable in its landing of some serious blows to life as we know it, however it’s going to be in how we recover and find a way forward that really matters.

Blending a sense of wonderment with some very real and grounded inspiration isn’t new territory for Glass Animals. 2016’s How To Be A Human Being was a touchstone moment for Bayley as he moved into more experimental territory as songwriter and producer, while the band strengthened as a dynamic unit to bring those initial ideas to life. 

With Dreamland, we see Bayley’s talents galvanise as stirring images from his childhood, adolescence and now, adulthood, come to life - buoyed on by snapping hip-hop beats and nostalgic sounds that stem directly from the music he discovered growing up.

Influences from the likes of Timbaland and Dr. Dre right through to The Strokes and The Beach Boys can be heard filtered throughout Dreamland, as Bayley revisits some of his favourite sounds in a new way. 

His love for hip-hop and the musicians that have influenced his writing isn’t ironic or manifested here with sarcasm - it’s a blend of tastes that come together easily, while highlighting the band’s strength as players.

Leading the charge with singles like ‘Tokyo Drifting’ (#34 on triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2019) and ‘Your Love (Deja Vu)’ laid the gauntlet down early - Dreamland was going to be an album packing some serious heat. 

And it doesn’t stop there. 

Deep rhythms and groove form the basis of ‘Space Ghost Coast To Coast’, while the darkly sing-songy delivery adds a biting effect to the lyrics, Bayley reminiscing on good times spent with a childhood friend who he would eventually drift from when he relocated from Texas back to the UK. As he’d find out after he left, this friend would later be caught trying to take a gun into school. 

“He tried to do a school shooting, but he got caught on the way in,” he remembers. “[The song] is reminiscing on the good times we had, and how someone so good and so kind had been able to do something so awful - what happened to them?"

Elsewhere, we see Dreamland continue to dive deep on themes of heartache and longing (‘It’s All So Incredibly Loud’), pursuing new attraction (‘Hot Sugar’) and looking at yourself (‘Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth’).

On ‘Domestic Bliss’, Bayley recounts his first memory of domestic violence - an experience that happened to his friend’s mother. 

“Domestic bliss / I know how bad you wanted it,” he sings. “Why’d you put up with that shit? / Why’d you go back for that kiss / maybe it tastes like him / when you’ve got tears on your lips…"

It’s easily one of the most emotionally candid moments on Dreamland and with the song’s string arrangement and melodies carrying it, the song is a striking stand out moment.

“I just remember not understanding at the time,” Bayley says of the experience. “I didn’t know what was going on but I knew it was the most awful thing I’d seen up until that point.” 

Interspersed with home movie audio from Bayley’s childhood that also features his mother’s voice, it’s impossible to escape the feeling that you’re in someone’s inner sanctum across Dreamland’s 45 minute duration. 

Album closer ‘Helium’ feels like a fitting end-credits number. The overarching sense of light that streams through the guitar lines and production bring it all together. It is effervescent in its delivery and revels in its escapism. 

We can wonder what the third Glass Animals album would have sounded like had Seaward’s accident not have happened, and had the onset of COVID-19 not thrown a spanner into the works. In its place, we might have gotten an album informed by what would have been some of the band’s biggest life experiences yet on the road.

Would it have been as candid as Dreamland? Who knows. 

This is an album born out of some pretty bleak times, delivered during some pretty bleak times but oddly enough, it’s a fitting progression in the band’s body of work. Instead of retreating and letting the negative sink in, the band pushed on and produced an album to stand by. 

Glass Animals’ Dreamland is an album that shouldn’t have been and yet, it’s the band’s most compelling. It proves that things definitely can get better. 

Dreamland is out now via Universal Music Australia.