A dreamy cascade of lullabies
Laura Carbone and The Underground Youth’s collaborative effort comes into fruition in their soothingly tranquil EP, In Dreams. Following the tone established by the EP’s title, each track sounds like a shifting trace through layers of dreamlike states, floating and reflecting on emotional turmoil over gentle guitar melodies.
“In Dreams” greets listeners with a grand ballad of hitting guitar strums and a soft duet of vocals. With callouts to the Sandman and lines such as “I close my eyes, then I drift away…,” the track sets the tone for the rest of the project as if lulling listeners to sleep and pulling them into a cloudy night sky of a dreamy trance. The track is loaded with echoing substance, it’s warm, and it’s full.
Some 1960s influence can be found on “Love Hurts,” with resonating, reverberating electric guitar strums reminiscent of a Billy Vinton track. The duo’s vocals flow effortlessly through each guitar strum, filled with sentiment, reflecting on the experiences of a past love: “I really learned a lot….” The production flutters upon Carbone and The Underground Youth’s vocals, almost forming a cascade that shifts upwards and then crashes into a shoreline.
“Crying” enhances a melancholy mood with weighted guitar strums layered over a slight plucking of strings. With echoing background vocals and each gentle guitar chord, the track has a holiday heartbreak kind of feel, as if swaying the night away with someone under the mistletoe. Each instance of Carbone’s and The Underground Youth’s delivery of the line “crying,” layered over a dense guitar progression, sounds like an additional flood of tears flowing outwards and into the track.
The bittersweet “Lonely Wine” is slow and resonant, mixed with lethargic electric guitar strums. Carbone pulls off some particularly lush vocals on this one, particularly in her use of doo-wop type vocables, which echo and wrap around the rich, solitary guitar strums that ring throughout the track, almost like a bell. Lyrics are strung with the pains of losing someone, exploring the combination of heartbreak and succumbing to substances to cope: “…brings back the memories of your embrace, I start to cry into my lonely wine.”
In Dreams is a brief yet powerful project. It is a track list of duets between Laura Carbone’s fluttery delivery and The Underground Youth’s sonorous tone that establishes a dreamy world of peace and harmony—quite literally harmony, as the two singers harmonize smoothly over each track, tackling themes such as the woes of heartbreak and finding peace through music.
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