Album Review: NO DREAM by Jeff Rosenstock

On the 20th of May Jeff Rosenstock, in true Jeff Rosenstock style, released a brand new full length without any fanfare, build up or promotion. All of a sudden there was a new Jeff Rosenstock album unleashed on the world and the punk rock scene was very excited. Titled NO DREAM, this is the fifth album to be released under the Jeff Rosenstock name. As a fan of pretty much everything Jeff has released, including former bands such as The Arrogant Sons Of Bitches and Bomb The Music Industry, I was looking forward to hearing the next addition to Jeff’s forever growing discography.

The first track is titled NO TIME. Starting out in a style that made me fall in love with Jeff Rosenstock all those years ago, this is an energetic and chaotic track that’s just fifty-four seconds long. On the song, Jeff asks the question ‘have you grown into the person that you wanted to be?’ and responds with the reason/excuse that they didn’t have the time. A common theme among a lot of Jeff’s music over the past few years has been self-discovery and looking at life in your thirties so it’s nice to see this continues on NO DREAM. Up next is Nikes (Alt). On this track, the tempo is brought down slightly but all of the energy remains. Jeff delivers the verses on the song in a punchy fashion that allows the song to quickly find a place inside of your mind. The verse is much more melodic and allows for plenty of sing-along moments. Scram! is about wanting to get away from the poisonous people in your life. The people who try and force you to see their point of view and aren’t willing to listen to your own. The song has a simple but effective rhythm and does a magnificent job of building towards its big ending. Next is the album’s title track, N O D R E A M. Starting out slowly before exploding into a big, angry passionate finale, N O D R E A M is about seeing atrocities on the TV and trying to ignore them before realising you should help and asking how it is possible. This is a track that seems to be becoming more and more relevant at the moment as people begin to see the terrible things going on in the world and want to help with a positive change.

I really enjoyed the alarm/siren like sound at the beginning of State Line. This is one of the more emotional tracks on the album with Jeff’s vocals feeling more strained than ever as he pours his heart out. The track is about life on tour and the emotions that you go through. The sixth song is titled f a m e and is maybe my favourite on the album. It’s about continuing to do your own thing despite the pressures of being a bigger name and people expecting a certain thing from you. It feels as if Jeff is releasing some past frustrations through the track and this is perhaps something that a lot of musicians will also relate to. Leave It In The Sun looks at the subject of struggling to let go of past relationships even though it’s often a necessary part of growing up. This, like many Jeff Rosenstock songs, is an extremely self-reflective song. When the song started, I was fully expecting a full blown fast paced number but instead the band stay at a mid and sometime even mellow tempo that really allows you to think about the track’s lyrics.

From the title The Beauty Of Breathing you might expect a positive song about how good life can be. This song is actually about realising all of the negative aspects of your personality and feeling jaded by them. Despite the downbeat nature of the song, it’s actually quite a summery sounding track – the sort that you would find on a “100 Songs Of Summer Playlist.” Old Crap begins with a scratchy DIY sounding acoustic opening which really takes you back to some of Jeff’s earlier work. I loved this as it breaks the album up considerably. As Old Crap progresses, the song morphs into a full band effort and the production gets cleaner. This also adds some great intensity to the song in a way that only Jeff Rosenstock can do. The tenth track, ***BNB is a song about life on the road, staying in strangers’ homes and how weird that can feel sometimes. The first two verses are basically reviews of stays at BNBs from being on tour. The autobiographical nature of this really helps the song hit home with what it can be like being on the road and staying at strangers’ places every night.

Monday At The Beach is a pretty special song for me. Growing up, myself and a group of my best friends would spend every Monday at the beach during the summer so it’s almost as if this song was written about that. It’s only a short, fifty four second song but it’s performed in such a way it feels like there’s a lot packed in. The penultimate song is titled Honeymoon Ashtray. The track is about always remembering the good parts of a relationship even when things are at their most difficult. This is a really sad and sombre song for the most part with some brief upbeat moments added towards the end of the track. NO DREAM is completed with the epic Ohio Tpke. This is a song about coming home from tour and dealing with the excitement of seeing your loved ones but also the dread of going through airports and feeling guilty about things. The song takes you on an series of highs and lows and has you feeling many emotions. It’s a track that really does play with your heartstrings in a fantastic way and is a fitting way to end the album.

NO DREAM is another very impressive addition to the Jeff Rosenstock discography. Jeff is one of the most prolific songwriters, not just in punk rock but in the wider world of music. The man churns out banger after banger. NO DREAM will please long time fans of the band and also be a great introduction to those discovering them for the first time.

Stream and download NO DREAM on Bandcamp here.

Like Jeff Rosenstock on Facebook here.

This review was written by Colin Clark.