The Dream Machine - Fort Perch Rock
The Dream Machine have released their third album Fort Perch Rock via Run On Records. Written, recorded and self-produced in their hometown of the Wirral, it feels both rooted and restless.
On 2024’s sophomore record Small Time Monsters, the Wirral outfit picked up where their debut left off. Melody was everything, and they wielded it well. Allowing more time to pass between albums has given them space to regroup and reimagine what it means to be The Dream Machine. Bridging old and new are ‘Flowers on the Razor’ and ‘Things That Make Us Cry’. The former leans into the vocal melodicism that lit up ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Children, My England’, as frontman Zak McDonnell delivers anguished layers of heartbreak (“without your love it won’t be the same”). Meanwhile, Matthew Gouldson plants the seeds of renewal, his guitars reaching the fuzzy, bugged-out heights of Anton Newcombe. ‘Things That Make Us Cry’ takes their gift for melody somewhere more whimsical, channelling Richard Hawley’s romantic sweep, Beach Boys’ pop sensibilities, and a touch of Phil Spector grandeur.
Elsewhere, the album pulls at calmer threads: ‘Julie on the Rocks’, ‘If I Could Be King’, and ‘The First Bird’. They expertly slow the pace on ‘Julie on the Rocks’, letting the bright furore of The Horrors’ Primary Colours dissolve into faded seaside glamour and comedown haze. ‘If I Could Be King’ merges Hawley’s crooning romanticism circa Hollow Meadows with the hazy introspection of Kurt Vile on this CSN-tinged gem where McDonnell somehow sounds godlike, floating above the swell. ‘The First Bird’, an eight-minute psych drama, draws from the mysticism of The Velvet Underground, echoes of The Verve’s ‘Gravity Grave’, and the exploratory ambition of The Coral’s Coral Island.
When they do step on the gas with ‘Duck Bone Fever’ and the title track, there are new layers that keep things from feeling familiar. The former is a freakbeat masterclass, chaotic, skidding along seaside promenades, barely lucid. ‘Fort Perch Rock’ drops Ty Segall into a world of sex, drugs and menace. Both are blessed with divine Newcombe-esque guitar lines, slicing through the album’s atmosphere with immediate force.
It would’ve been easy for the band to stick to the lanes carved out by their first two records. Easier still to choose just one new direction and play it safe. Instead, Dream Machine, when faced with a creative crossroads, chose both routes and forged them as one, and they’re a far better band for it.