Dreamend – Maybe We’re Making God Sad And Lonely – Album Review

Dreamend – Maybe We’re Making God Sad And Lonely – Review by Joshua Reedy.

(2005)

My copy: 2010 reissue on peach with blue haze vinyl by Graveface Records.

Dreamend is the work primarily of Ryan Manon (AKA Ryan Graveface) who is known both for running the Georgia based record label Graveface records and for contributing guitar to indie/electronic band Black Moth Super Rainbow. Manon’s 2005 record is slow and haunting, borrowing mostly from modern sects of post-rock and slowcore. While some production and writing choices create a few bumps in the road, Maybe We’re Making God Sad And Lonely is impressively both frail and full with ghostly melodies and crescendos.

Mysterious delayed guitar trips over a 3 / 4 drum pattern on opener “A Place In Thy Memory.” Glockenspiel is added early on, but it is doused in enough reverb that its inclusion is mostly inoffensive here. The tender waltz of guitar continues until the song falls and reinvents itself several times, with each soft reboot ripping away at the patience that had been allotted to the prior melodies. While some of the dense buildups are engaging and cathartic, the writing on this first track feels more insecure than anything. “In Her Little Bed We Lay Her” is extremely charming for simply building an eerie atmosphere of vibrating synths to match the mood of a spoken word sample of a woman reciting a civil war era ghost story – with dreamy guitars reverberating deeply like water dripping down into a well.

Choppy post-punk fusion is born out of the bass on “Can’t Take You {Dif}” where singing marks a total change of pace. The glockenspiel is becoming a total nuisance now, which is disappointing given the track’s powerful tremolos and cavernous vocal howling. “Iceland” totally dives into slowcore with simple guitar that sighs patiently as drums and vocals quietly rise in volume. Spiraling first into a fit of tremolo, the track then snaps into a trance-like waltz with syncopating guitar strokes. Though the music does occasionally swell, nothing is ever too abrasive – rather the melodies float through the rhythm section, like wind cutting through the limbs of a dead tree.

“Mary Cogswell & Fred Vaillancourt” is a brief frenzy that could be likened to Leaves era Unwound. “New Zealand” is the final voyage into post-rock, setting at roughly ten minutes (less if you discount the moment of silence near the end). Bass and drums delay their entrance, drawing more attention to the stability they give to the splintering maze of delayed guitar. The guitar rises and rises, threatening to swallow the whole composition before the music again resets to quiet strumming. Manon then mixes in walls of reverberting vocal “Las,” that give the feeling of embarking on a mildly uncomfortable trip, knowing that one bad thought could capsize the mood entirely. After a minute or so of silence there is one final semi-triumphant reprisal.

For what seems to be either an entirely solo or mostly solo effort, Maybe We’re Making God Sad And Lonely is an impressive record. This record falters a bit in its aping of third-wave post-rock, but adds enough unique and interesting ideas that nothing boring ever feels too permanent. Perhaps suiting his namesake of “Graveface” a bit too well, Maybe We’re Making God Sad And Lonely is fittingly most effective when consumed in the early chills of autumn.

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