On their fourth album Rose Main Reading Room, Peel Dream Magazine refine the new musical style introduced on their previous release Pad.
This Los Angeles-based outfit have a trend of changing styles on every record. Their 2018 debut Modern Meta Physic is “Pavement-flavored” noisy psychedelic indie music. The 2020 follow up Agitprop Alterna takes its predecessor’s sound and gives it a shoegaze twist. The 2022 release Pad takes a completely different direction and introduces a soft pastoral sound performed by the band with the aesthetics of a frugal bedroom pop artist. Rose Main Reading Room might follow the similar “pastoral” path of Pad, but takes the sound to a whole new level of intricacy and gorgeousness, enough to be considered as yet another style change.
Overall, the album has a sense of serenity with timid acoustic guitar-dominated numbers and frontman and primary vocalist Joseph Stevens’ whispery singing. There is a Belle and Sebastian aspect with gentle but powerfully melodious guitars on tracks like “I Wasn’t Made For War,” but Rose Main Reading Room has many more dimensions that provide further sonic depth, enough to certify it as a musical departure from Pad.
For instance, a song like “Dawn” has intricate nuances starting with the flute sounds that imitate birdsong with tender melancholic guitars while co-vocalist Olivia Babuka Black sings in a wistful but deadpan sixties bossa nova style as the drums pretend to build up to a crescendo, all collectively evoking a majestic sunrise being witnessed while being surrounded by nature’s serenity.
Rose Main Reading Room certainly has rusticity in its DNA. But when you add other interesting details, they add a whole new level of wonderment to the album. Like the dancy sixties-sounding drums with noisy analogue synthesizers on “Lie In The Gutter,” dry punkish vocals and jagged guitars on “Wish You Well,” and the quirky drum and synths with Stevens’ equally quirky robotic singing paired with Babuka Black’s contrasting soft breezy singing on “Oblast.”
With Rose Main Reading Room, Peel Dream Magazine have not only found a new sound, but have excelled at their song craft in general. So the outcome should be equally excellent, whether they choose to pursue in the same direction or do something new on their next venture. Because at this point, Peel Dream Magazine have proven that they are just very good at what they do, period.
