Is there a crueler mistress in rock'n'roll than jangly power pop? For people of a certain generation (and those who wish they were born in it), there is no purer form of pop music-- the gilded group harmonies, the pristine hooks, the ringing Rickenbacker chords that are the very definition of perfect sound forever. It's a music that sounds like the eternal promise and euphoria of youth-- and yet, it's a strain of rock music that hasn't been purchased by teenagers in large quantities since, oh, 1965, while some of the more valiant but failed attempts to revive it on mass level have driven its adherents to career-killing seclusion (see: Lee Mavers of the La's), suicide (half of Badfinger), or reactionary psychobilly records (Alex Chilton). But, in spite of the genre's no-hope commercial prospects and oddly tragic history, there are always new recruits who entrust themselves with the daunting task of breathing new life into an almost 50-year-old artform. And, invariably, the ones who modestly succeed approach jangly power-pop not as some historical reenactment of a bygone golden age, but as a gauzy lens that magnifies the impossibility of ever living in one.
London four-piece Weird Dreams takes this logic one step further, by recasting the exuberance of mid-1960s Beatles and Byrds as a manifestation of modern-day social anxieties and sleep-depravation-induced paranoia: the band's frontman, Doran Edwards, introduces himself on Choreography by proudly declaring, "I live in an empty room where the shadows call my name"; his most endearing love song ("Hurts So Bad") is a paean to emotional masochism. In this sense, Weird Dreams' true spiritual antecedents aren't the aforementioned classic-rock touchstones, but the Soft Boys, the rare first-wave post-punk band to draw inspiration from pop's paisley period and give it a subversive spin. Weird Dreams' Edwards may not possess the same flair for absurdity and perversity as the young Robyn Hitchcock, but Choreography strikes a similarly uncanny balance between reverence and deviance for their sources-- what sticks with you isn't so much the crystalline guitar lines and misty-eyed melodies as the mischievous sense that something more sinister is lurking beneath all the pretty surfaces.
Sure, the band may oversell this conceit off the bat by calling themselves Weird Dreams, blissfully saluting Satan on "666.66", and naming their pretty acoustic campfire serenade "River of the Damned", gestures akin to an alternative-rock radio station using the word "Edge" in its name. But for a good three quarters of its 47-minute run time, Choreography proves to be a consistently rewarding, highly revelatory listen, as Weird Dreams progress outward from the knotty power pop of the album's introductory tract to open up the sound by deploying its intertwining dual-guitar formation to more wondrous effect (the extended coda of "Suburban Coated Creatures" is especially lustrous). After peaking nine tracks in with the exquisite melancholy of "Velvet Morning", Weird Dreams effectively go into retreat, and spend the home stretch retracing previously covered terrain on songs that aren't quite distinguished enough to transcend the familiarly jangly dressing. Still, editing issues aside, Choreography stands as a most impressive debut: one that captures a young rock 'n' roll band buzzing with raw energy and inspiration, while already displaying the sort of rapidly sophisticating songcraft you expect to hear on a sophomore release.
