Jerome's Dream

Jerome's Dream: PresentsPresents (2001)
Alone Records

Reviewer Rating: 2

Contributed by: AnchorsAnchors
(others by this writer | submit your own)
Published on January 7th 2005Bands change their sounds and direction all the time.Sometimes we embrace the change, knowing that it's for the good of the band, and they'll put out even better records, and sometimes bands take such a U-turn for the worst, that we're not even so sure it's the same band we once liked. You can never.

Bands change their sounds and direction all the time.Sometimes we embrace the change, knowing that it's for the good of the band, and they'll put out even better records, and sometimes bands take such a U-turn for the worst, that we're not even so sure it's the same band we once liked. You can never anticipate how you'll feel about a change in direction until you actually hear it, but unfortunately for Jerome's Dream, their new path in music is one I'm not really looking to go down.

The first thing you'll more than likely notice about this album are the vocals. A little back story on that... If this is the first thing you've heard from Jerome's Dream, it's important that you know this is nothing like how the band used to sound. They started out as a screamo band, putting out split 7"s with bands such as Orchid, Usurp Synapse, and The Book Of Dead names, even releasing a 10" of their own, Seeing Means More Than Safety, in May of 2000. This is a band that accented Orchid and Usurp Synapse well, playing the same discordant screamo with short, nonsensical-titled songs and those trademark shrieking vocals. The vocals on Presents, however, sound like they've been recorded after being shouted through a megaphone. I don't 100% for sure know why the change took place, but as the story goes, the singer used to do shows without a mic, and thus damaged his voice so badly, he could no longer scream the same way.

After listening to this album five or six times, and trying very dilligently, I still can't get past the vocals. It just overrides any technical merit the band has, and makes me want to turn it off, which is a shame, because if you do truly listen to this album, it's pretty apparent that Jerome's Dream are a talented group of musicians. The guitar and drums are fast and are played in odd time signatures, and have lightning fast tempo changes, just as you would expect from most screamo bands, though this can in no way be construed as screamo with the vocals it has. Save the album's closer, the 16-minute long instrumental "35," (though half of it is just quiet, with no instrumentation at all) only one song breaks the two-minute barrier here, with most not cracking a minute and a half. The length of "35" is completely unecessary, and fails to hold your attention for even half its duration. The song "What Other Adjective Would You Have Me Use?" best exemplifies that these are three talented musicians, despite the vocals and their obvious affection for feedback and reverb.

If you're looking for salvation from the lyrics, I hate to disappoint you, but there's nothing in the way of that either. In the aforementioned "What Other Adjective...," the lyrics are completely random. Given, I doubt lyrics are of any sort of focus or importance for these guys, but I'd have a difficult time letting anybody get away with "Hi, I'm Bill the confusion specialist! / Gimme fourteen minutes and you won't have any idea what hit you / And don't worry, you can bet you'll get your money's worth!"

This was Jerome's Dreams last ever release, and after really enjoying most of the 7"s they did, I hate to see them go out like this. The music is the saving grace here, as I really do enjoy that aspect of this album, but the vocals just seem to suck all the enjoyment out of what otherwise could have been solid. I think I'd even score this higher if it was purely instrumental. If you're looking for the screamo that you've come to know from Jerome's Dream, I reccomend their split with Usurp Synapse, because this sure is a long way off.

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

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Greeny341 (December 8, 2006)

changed my mind, i've started to enjoy this

Greeny341 (August 13, 2006)

its so sad that jeromes dream had to end this way... :-(

Anonymous (June 22, 2005)

double who? double you! is about having sex with george bush's daughter, barbara. funny story behind that one! really? yeah, really!

Anonymous (January 20, 2005)

brilliant and the lyrics are serious in some aspects.

"nine belt loops down to six brings me fame"

american image bashing on how everything thin in good on television. these guys just may be over some people's heads but they have what it takes to do so.

Anchors (January 8, 2005)

Yeah, looking at it now, I do agree with you. It does look like they're still an existant band, and my bad on that. It is a bit misleading.

And I'll have to pick up that discography.

Anonymous (January 8, 2005)

I really like how you review records, and I love the genre that you select to review, but the way you open your reviews, you almost make it seem like the album is new or the band is still around.

Anyway, I love this record, I think it is ahead of its time.

Everyone needs to check out this band's new discography CD that just came out entitled "Completed". It actually has this record on it.

-Greg

Anchors (January 8, 2005)

I don't know man, I just don't see it in those lyrics. Of course there could be something there that I'm not reading into, but Jerome's Dream was never a band that took themselves that seriously.

"Georgie's girl likes to fuck! She loves it! [No , she] really does! Her green grass is blue-green, green grass. Doin' the Dew Dude's dew dude!"

That's from 'Double Who! Double You!', and probably would have been a better example to fit my point, but in any event I just don't them as a band trying to lyrically get a point across.

And to the kid below, if you're going to try and attack my reviews, at least have the intelligence to make a decent point. "i was going to post a comment mentioning how you could give jeromes dream such a poor score..." Make sense much? Apparently not. Learn to speak the langauge, then get back to me on my reviews.

Anonymous (January 8, 2005)

i was going to post a comment mentioning how you could give jeromes dream such a poor score, but judging from some of your previous reviews you haven't got much sense in this genre.

Anonymous (January 8, 2005)

Jerome Bettis.

Super Bowl.

'nuff said.

- Kirby

OverDefined (January 8, 2005)

I like those lyrics you printed. It sounds like the writer is poking fun at the stream of consciousness style of writing that he uses. Damn, I really like those lyrics. Very clever.