Achieving their highest-ever charting full-length release with 2020’s ‘The Glow’, selling out a tour in their home country, and shifting upwards of 65,000 tickets on their last UK tour, it would be safe to say the trio have experienced many of the highs the music industry has to offer in their career to date.
Luckily for us listeners however, the group have no intentions of stopping and are set to release their best record yet with ‘How Many Dreams?’ dropping this Friday March 31.
Having travelled the world and explored new sounds over the last decade, DMA’S return to the music that inspired them to start a band in the first place. The result is a sprawling, ambitious record that combines wide-ranging influences such as electronic dance music and 90s Britpop into a cohesive, compelling, and nostalgic listen.
It is this theme of nostalgia that acts as the thread tying together the many disparate sounds found on ‘How Many Dreams?’, finding its expression through Tommy O’Dell’s trademark strong sing-along vocals. Asking questions throughout the record such as “How many dreams to find out what you have lost? / How many years to find out what you must love, yeah?”, “Don’t you miss those early years?”, and “Why can’t I seem to be the man I was?”, DMA’S pine for a time gone by and the music that came from it.
Alongside using their influences from these halcyon days, DMA’S made sure to put the live experience at the forefront of their creative process. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the opening title track ‘How Many Dreams?’ and single ‘Everybody’s Saying Thursday’s The Weekend’, where the acoustic-led sound of their pre-debut album days is melded with pulsating techno beats to form tracks that are impossible to imagine a venue not going wild to.
In this vein, the many fans that the band gained following their 2016 debut ‘Hills End’ won’t be disappointed as the trio also revisit these sounds that sent them into the indie stratosphere. Love letter to their day-one fans ‘Olympia’ and ‘Fading Like A Picture’ are reminiscent of their perennial show-closing single ‘Lay Down’; and ‘Forever’ and ‘Dear Future’ will soon prove to be fan-favourite slower sing-alongs just like ‘Step Up The Morphine’ and ‘So We Know’, with a touch of the classic Richard Ashcroft and The Verve orchestral anthemics added for good measure.
As they look to the past for inspiration, DMA’S have also found novel sounds for them which comprise the highlights of ‘How Many Dreams?’ and with any luck will inform their future forays into the world of music. First single of the record ‘I Don’t Need To Hide’ is a fantastic beefed-up take on the mainstream drum-and-bass craze of the 2000s and 2010s, and ‘Something We Are Overcoming’ listens like an unashamed ode to queen of pop Cher that has roots in their cover of her classic ‘Believe’.
DMA’S certainly save the best for last with their powerhouse closer ‘De Carle’. A thumping big beat track that owes a lot to The Prodigy, one line repeats throughout: “We could be forever”. With ‘How Many Dreams?’, the Australian group indeed stake their claim to be remembered among the worldwide indie scene forever, simultaneously reaching back and consolidating the sounds of their career to this point and reaching forward to their future exploits in the business.
Come its release on Friday, ‘How Many Dreams?’ will immediately be recognised as the seminal record within DMA’S discography that it is, and their fans will be champing at the bit to see them around the world on their tours from spring onwards.
David Harrold
Image: ‘How Many Dreams?’ Official Album Cover
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