Briefly about how we kill our dreams today: trivially easy – with a thumb on the screen. Scroll, like, another scroll. Somewhere between others’ successes and our own postponed plans, dreams leave without slamming the door. The new single “Kill The Dream” by LOYD is a neatly framed verdict on the habit of living in the mode of “one more swipe, and I’ll start.” It is the third from the upcoming album “FRESH MEAT”, and, apparently, one of the most precise.
Wales gave the world rugby, the Welsh language and, if you believe LOYD, quite decent electro-pop. The artist from Cardiff mixes genres effortlessly: touching melodies, lyrics with subtext, and the experience of a queer man from the very heart of Wales-all of it comes together in a sound that clings to you by the middle of the track. I like how LOYD talks about the complex without heaviness. His music is electro-pop with nerve, gloss and a note of anxiety. In “Kill The Dream” everything is brought to perfection: clean and elegant production by Edward Russell. From the first seconds the song builds a space in which reality is slightly blurred. It is not entirely clear where you are – in a room or inside your own phone. An original and deft trick of the track. It pulls you in, makes the listener part of a digital cocoon where everything is convenient, fast and… unproductive.
The text works like an inner confession of a person who has already understood that something went wrong, but is not yet fully ready to fix it. LOYD carefully opens up this state and fixes it. The image of the screen is a cosmic object – cold, endless, all-consuming. Something like a black hole, into which time, energy and the desire to create are dragged. The refrain works especially precisely: “Don’t trust the screen – It killed the dream”. And the final repeated “It killed the dream” transforms into a mantra – or, more precisely, into a verdict. Without dramatic bursts, it is a fact that has happened.
As an artist, LOYD continues to build his recognizable territory: multi-genre nature, sincerity and subtle irony. “Kill The Dream” – a little over three minutes of music that do what a good pop song should do: speak about the big through the small, about the complex – accessibly, about the personal – openly. The phone can still be left in your hand. But to think, it’s high time.
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