dreams I Fly In, Dreams I Die In

Ancient Wave’s Dreams I Fly In, Dreams I Die In may be a debut, but it’s clear the Minneapolis quintet has long been finishing each other’s sentences. 

Ed Draper is the rock steady pocket drummer made for bandleader Jarad Miles: each (tantalizingly rare) hooky, bombastic syncopation reconfirms.  Throughout, Draper frequently recedes into the mix (as smooth drummers will), then reemerges, pleasingly heavy handed, as in “Wanna Be High,” where he and Miles punch home the finer point of its climactic coda. 

Repeated listens reveal subtler interplay between Draper and bassist Andy Nail—don’t sleep on their ride-bass conversations within the choruses of “Devil’s In Me,” as much of their fine collaboration pulsates just beneath the radar.

Engineer, Jason Orris, is clearly on the same page with Miles and the band throughout.  “Mississippi Song’s” bridge is a prime example— Orris deftly weaves guitarist Andrew Berg’s percussive stabs with keyboardist Noah Klemp’s arpeggiated calliope atop the aforementioned punchy, fat rhythm section;  he then finds just the right delay for the decrescendo following Miles’s exclamatory vocal stab.

Jarad’s in his typically fit--and eclectic--songwriting form.  Don’t miss Berg’s candycane-sparkler solo in (emotionally complex) doo-wop homage “No One Wants To Be Alone,” or Klemp’s perfectly simplistic and definitive one-note hook in the moving confessional “All My Days, All My Nights.”