After their founding back in 1986 and a brief period of activity that lasted until 1990, the Belgian band The Ultimate Dreamers interrupted their career, later reforming in 2021, giving rise to a new - and more productive - creative phase. The line-up, composed of Frédéric ( vox / second bass / guitar / lyrics ) , Joël ( bass guitar ) , Bertrand ( guitar ) and the classical musician Sandrine ( synths / cello ) , is the architect of an extremely incisive, magnetic sound, genetically coming from a danceable, original combination among the austere, experimental aestheticism of English 80's Post-Punk, the melancholic, gloomy, hallucinated visionarity of the Belgian Coldwave and the harmonious fantasies of the New Wave, all this fused with an avveniristic interpretation of the popish concepts. Strongly motivated, the band translates intentions into concrete actions, releasing a series of excellent releases available on their Bandcamp page, including this album "Echoing Reverie" ( 2023 ) , published in CD and LP editions by the labels Spleen+ / Wave Tension Records. The release is produced by Len Lemeire, producer, vocalist, remixer, lyricist, as well as founder with Geert Machtelinck of the Belgian Electro / Industrial / EBM band Implant. The Ultimate Dreamers' musics, from the dawn of their appearance, are characterized by essential electronic percussiveness at varying speeds, perpetually dark, cold and nostalgic vocalism, pronounced through low modulations and combined with suggestive counterpoints of electric guitars, bass and synth, in a set of sonorities that transport the listener into an imaginary and highly engaging dimension in which he will get lost, but also into a cruelly disillusioned and pessimistic reality dominated by indifference, melancholy and broken dreams. The themes covered in the lyrics speak with cynical, introspective lucidity and surrealism of dreams, social criticism, the brevity of life, loneliness and the obscurity of the human soul. "Echoing Reverie" is an electric-electronic 'colossal' release with a dominant, resolute character, in which the eight tracks do not allow space for any compromise: everything is conceived to give maximum effectiveness to intransigent but assimilable modulations, formulated with art, versatility and a rare compositional perspicacity. Sonic retrospective meets avantgardism, in a convergence of post-punker/coldwaver identity and innovative momentum.
"Polarized" > The midtempo scans of the drumming generate trajectories, on which the rhythmic pulsations of the bass, the alienating guitarism and the darkness of the keyboard collide, in a vortex of danceability, dynamism and bombast, magnified by a chant with a mysterious aura. Superb track, antithesis of brightness.
"A Day In The Life" > Echoed vocals, overflowing with melancholy and decadent romanticism, spread desolate melodies, while midtempo-uptempo drum-programming metrics draw a double rhythmic path in which the vibrant depth of the bass, the electricity of the guitars and the atmospheric intensity of the keyboard resonate.
"Piano Ghost" > The spectral obsessiveness of the replicated synthetic-pianistic notes hovers parallel to the pulsations of the bass, imbued with the incendiary chemistry of the guitars, all this surrounded by vocals saturated with dark glaciality, torment and rationally divided by midtempo beats. Power, drama and emotional involvement subjugate the listener, generating restlessness and pleasure: the sensation of ice on the skin.
"Hell’s Bells" > Transposition in a dark-electric key of the famous AC / DC hit, this song develops from the mournful tolling of the bell and the black pads in the intro, to then evolve on cathartic keyboard sonances, ethereal guitar arpeggios, dry symmetries of drum-programming midtempo and subterranean bass cycles, above which stands out a sinisterly hoarse vocalism, little more than whispered. A one-way trip to the underworld.
"Midnight" > Stunning, killer and prospectively perfect track: its 80's minded musicality, full of melodic hooks, instantly conquers through terse vocal euphonies which in the refrain become so irresistible as to be indelibly fixed in the memory, all this supported by danceable midtempo drum-machine cadences, linear bass punctuations, dilated guitar sections and enveloping keyboard chords. To dance and listen to without pause from here to eternity. Stellar performance!
"Big Violent" > Episode in which lies an explicit vocal aggression expressed in the form of verses initially sung with controlled anger and later transformed into a distorted, liberating chant, torn by a high-sounding spiral of modulations overheated by the high voltage of the guitars, in a deflagration of red-hot sparks of electric strings, stabbing reverbs, solid midtempo drumming and regular bass patterns. Destabilizing sonic experience.
"I Loved You?!" > Electronically energetic, this song is designed by uptempo drum-programming grooves alongside sequencer straights, alienating chant and warm synth flows. Melodies that taste of futurism and retrospection at the same time.
"Implant Loved You?! ( Implant Remix )" > Clubby arrangements and greater instrumental incisiveness make this version a highly effective dancefloor filler. Implant reworks the structures, exponentially increasing the level of danceability. A must in the playlist of every alternative dee-jay.
Conclusions: Top album which can only be described in laudatory terms. The band possesses the enviable merit of having acquired in its DNA the most effective strategies of the legendary old-school background, managing to transform them today into sound choreographies that border on the sublime.This essential full-lenght conquers with disarming naturalness: you will love it with participation and sincerity, surprising yourself by humming lost in thought the catchiest refrains. The title track, varied and emotionally communicative, flows with surprising fluidity, enchanting and enrapturing the listener with the charm of sonorities that directly reach the soul without intermediate stops. The Ultimate Dreamers are not only advanced, valid revisionists of the musical phenomenon to which they belong, but, above all, they can be considered among the projects which, better than countless others, know how to interpret music in an authentic, spectacular way and with a notable charge of personality. But each of these written words is nothing compared to the magnificence you listen in "Echoing Reverie". Post-Punk / Coldwave in superlative mode.