Dream City Film Club - Dream City Film Club

Released
1997

Label
Beggars Banquet

Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund

Contact
Dream City Film Club
c/o Org, Unit 205,
The Old Gramaphone Works
326 Kensal Road
London, W10 5BZ, UK

Dream City Film Club

DREAM CITY FILM CLUB

Track Listing

1. Night of Nights
2. Shit Tinted Shades
3. Pissboy
4. Because You Wanted It
5. Filth Dealer
6. Mama
7. Porno Paradiso
8. Situation Desperate
9. Perfect Piece of Trash
10. Vague
11. If I Die I Die
12. 'Til The End of The World
13. "Untitled" (hidden track)

           Released on the English Beggars Banquet label, Dream City Film Club's debut album sounds more like the soundtrack for an American road movie of the 60s, than a yell from the streets of London. The quartet (Laurence Ash, Andrew Park, Alex Vald and Michael John Sheehy) is in the traditional rock 'n roll vein, employing drums, guitars, bass and vocals to compose a hybrid of rockerbilly-folk music with a punk sentiment. A number of the songs are fast-paced with ringing guitars and distorted vocals, but , just as frequently -- and most successfully -- the songs are mellow little ballads about loneliness, alienation and the blue heart.
          There is a nice balance in Dream City Film Club's music, between the vocals and the instrumentation. One half of the songs have strongly developed narrative lyrics, and on these tracks the instrumentation is minimal -- although very evocative. The other half of the songs feature richer use of drums and guitars, and have more traditional rock 'n roll arrangements, with the vocals being carried by the music and greater emphasis on refrains.
          Dream City Film Club manages to deliver a wonderfully moody CD that takes the listener on a journey into the American past as recreated in paintings, films, period comercials and Life magazines. The album conjures up the atmospheres of late night diners, smoke-filled pool halls, run-down fairgrounds and desolate desert highways. Their soundscapes are peopled with lonely young men in leather jackets with greased back hair, and marlboro cigarettes dangling from their lips. Nostalgia for convertible cars with huge tailfins, neon signs and jukeboxes, Monroesque smalltown beauties in cotton dresses, and double-feature movie matinees, runs like a red thread through the thirteen songs on the album.
          Here is something for anyone who loves the soundtracks for David Lynch's films, who swoons over the voices of Chris Isaak and Morrissey, or, who simply loves to view late night screenings of such movie classics as The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause and The Hustler.

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