Released: 2020
Up until their second album How To Be A Human Being things seemed to be going along a predictable curve for Glass Animals. Formed in Oxford in the early 10’s and fronted by Dave Bayley they’d steadily built an audience on both sides of the Atlantic, contemporaries of other boffin rock outfits like Metronomy and M83.
What caused the shift was competely unexpected and almost tragic. Drummer Joe Seaward was involved in an accident cycling: after waking up he found he’d lost the ability to speak or walk. Bayley then shifted songwriting direction radically, making the theme of their next outing Dreamland a semi autobiographical journey through his adolescence in Texas. From that the R&B peppered Heat Waves would become one of the most streamed songs of all time.
Inevitably it overshadowed the rest of an album which was musically benign but lyrically far darker than before. Tangerine was a prime example, a song with a glittering synth pop surface but a ragged theme of dying love and now bitter memories of older, better days. Times change, but not always for everyone’s better.
The Voice Of Unreason 