Dreamwell – “Obelisk Of Hands”

Dreamwell – “Obelisk Of Hands”

The Providence “emo post skramz” band Dreamwell released their album Modern Grotesque in early 2021. They’ve signed to Prosthetic Records and will follow it up this fall with In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You. Vocalist KZ Staska shared a statement on the new LP:

We invested an insane amount of detail and care into every aspect of this album and cannot wait to share it with you. In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You is an exploration of interpersonal relationships and how they are impacted by mental illness, particularly Borderline Personality Disorder, and employs a loose conceptual narrative following a character caught in a waking dream, viewing every aspect of his life through the lens of a heavily distorted reality and struggling to escape from his paranoid nightmares.

The new album’s lead single, “Obelisk Of Hands,” takes Dreamwell’s sound in an epic metalcore direction before going full-on screamo meltdown mode at the end. “You couldn’t stack enough stones to crush the devil out of me!” Staska begins. “What’s in a face? What’s in a name? I smell a body, I crave its heat.” Staska shared some thoughts on this song in particular:

In “Obelisk of Hands,” what starts as a song about sexual openness slowly morphs into a sadder, bleaker song about using sexuality as a substitute for a lack of romantic affection and a temporary, and ultimately empty, attempt to feel less alone.

The song features our good friend Logan St. Germain who plays bass in the band Anklebiter and was formerly the guitarist and vocalist for the band Lilac Queen. They have an incredible voice and sang the clean bridge a lot better than I possibly could have, and I’m thrilled by the extra dynamic touch that they add to the track.

The new single comes with a video featuring footage of Dreamwell on tour. Watch it below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Good Reasons To Freeze To Death”
02 “Studying The Greats In Self Immolation”
03 “Lord Have MRSA On My Soul”
04 “All Towers Drawn In The Equatorial Room”
05 “Obelisk Of Hands”
06 “It Will Hurt, And You Won’t Get To Be Surprised”
07 “Reverberations Of A Sickly Wound”
08 “Blighttown Type Beat”
09 “Body Fountain”
10 “I Dream’t Of A Room of Clouds”
11 “Rue de Noms (Could Have Been Better, Should Have Been More)”

In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You is out 10/20 on Prosthetic.

Jared Shute

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