Dreamers of the Ghetto frontman Luke Jones has this great big voice; not just recording-booth big, but grain-silo big, the kind so rousing, so grandiose, it'd overpower anything short of an anthem. And so Dreamers of the Ghetto write anthems, all these great big songs to go with their frontman's great big voice. Enemy/Lover, their debut LP, is not just indie rock-club big. It's mainstage big. Listening to Enemy/Lover, it takes no stretch of the imagination to see the band's long name inching its way toward the top of all sorts of bills in the months ahead.
Enemy/Lover works in widescreen, searching verses crashing into sweeping choruses, Jones shouting big questions at the sky. Towering and triumphal, Dreamers take most of their cues from stadium-fillers from U2 to Springsteen to indie overgrounders like Arcade Fire and the National. I sometimes hear an optimism-infused spin on much-missed Canadian rockers Constantines; listen close, and you'll pick up hints of Rod Stewart, Simple Minds, and Coldplay. It's not that Dreamers of the Ghetto sound especially like any one of these, but that they sound a bit like all of them, and just about anybody else who's ever stretched the canvas out as far as it goes. Nearly every note on Enemy/Lover is pitched as far as it'll fly; subtlety, as befits a band who would call itself Dreamers of the Ghetto, isn't exactly job one. More room under the big tent that way, I reckon.
A panoramic guitar figure and a stampede of drums set the scene for the ponderous "State of a Dream", a slice of Inception-style uncertainty blown up to billboard size. It's bettered by "Connection", its bleary, solitary organ giving way to its towering chorus, "When you're gone, I know you're with me." This is no mild disruption in the REM cycle or absence-addled fondness; both songs find Jones practically doubled-over from pleading, bouncing those lines off a (for now, imaginary) sea of thousands. The constant craving in Jones' throat keeps Enemy/Lover well-suited for a solitary bedroom hideout, but its insistent songs aim for anyone within earshot. The Dreamers aren't seeking some midpoint between intimacy and grandiosity, they're aiming for both at once; that same combination's kept Bono in leather and wraparounds for decades now, a rarified territory these Dreamers seem almost born into.
The band's gaping chords and roaring percussion rarely snag the spotlight from Jones' voice; when it does, as on the oscillating guitar that closes out "Regulator", what could easily turn to empty embellishment feels instead like an elevation of the song itself. Again, decorum's not their strongest suit, but when they swing a line from the aforementioned "Regulator" back around into "Dark Falcons", it suggests that there are plenty of small pleasures to be found amidst Enemy/Lover's biggie-sized wallop. It's the sort of record you locate yourself in, its concerns universal, its populist appeal easy to grasp, its songs at once moving and movable.
Stirring as they can be, a couple of Enemy/Lover's sky-streaking melodies seem to stick to a similar flightpath. And at times, the Dreamers' all-encompassing approach proves a little too ecumenical, its arms outstretched too wide to pull you in close. But those are the risks you run when you're operating on such a grand scale, and the exultant, openhearted Enemy/Lover is rarely outpaced by its lofty ambitions.
