The road up to this point from Rhode Island’s Dreamwell has been characterized by starts and stops, ups and downs, and obstacles to overcome. Yet overcome them all they did, rising to the challenge and making a name for themselves not just in the underground screamo scene of the USA but across heavy music as a whole. Now on the release of their second full-length album and Prosthetic Records debut In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You, we finally find the band not starting over, but starting fresh, able to craft the kind of album they always set out to.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest difference between Dreamwell’s previous and new efforts is how focused In My Saddest Dreams is, owing to the fact that it is the first album constructed start-to-finish by Dreamwell’s current lineup. Taking a fresh approach to songwriting not only allows each member of the band to push themselves in their performances, but it allows the album as a whole to narratively and musically flow much more seamlessly than before. Eschewing the confessional style lyrical content of Modern Grotesque, In My Saddest Dreams explores an overarching narrative theme, wherein a character experiences a series of nightmares and hallucinations, from half-flooded haunted houses to visions straight out of the Book of Revelations, to convey the emotional turbulence and reality-distorting paranoia of Borderline Personality Disorder.

Mirroring the descent of the main character deeper into these visions, the album’s songs flow from crystalline bliss to noise-infected nightmare, to broken-hearted misery as the songs tick on, ending with a vision of no hope whatsoever (In my saddest dreams I see how close I am to the life I’d like to lead / In my saddest dreams, I am beside you). Musically, In My Saddest Dreams takes inspiration from modern post-hardcore and folds in new influences from black metal, noise, and sludge, not only succeeding at providing perfect emotional backdrop for the defining narrative but advancing the sound of Dreamwell at every turn. The band that single-handedly offered me the most fresh and interesting take on screamo I had heard in years somehow managed to do it all once again. Every song presented here is exciting start to finish, with all the highs, lows, and emotional gut punches anyone could want along the way.

Dreamwell’s Modern Grotesque is a landmark album, for the scene as a whole and for me personally. It was my number one album of 2021, an album I said managed to build “a bridge between screamo’s past and present as a road to its future” and one I called “an album that will be measured as a triumph, as a pinnacle of heavy music, for years to come.” I still stand by everything I had to say about it some two years on from its release, but with praise as heavy as this, there was a part of me that wondered what would come after and whether it would measure up to my own expectations. I needn’t have worried at all, it turns out. In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You is exactly what a follow up to an album as incredible as Modern Grotesque could have been: improved in every way.

— Vincent

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In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You is available now digitally as well as on CD and vinyl through Prosthetic Records. For more information on Dreamwell, visit the band’s Facebook page.