Mandy's Dreaming Release An Eclectic New EP

You are not yet familiar with the sounds of Mandy's Dreaming, don't let us be among the first to introduce you as the group recently released a four-track record that gives you a lot to chew on, especially in the sense of guitar tone, mixing genres, and giving you this great, rounded, Indy feel with hints of jamming and not without its pop sensibility.

The record is self-titled, and the first track is one of my personal favorites, simply because it gives you this smooth guitar tone, a great rhythm, and a lot of fun, jammy, lead guitar work that just feels good when you listen to it.

I think that a lot of the guitar performances across the record itself is a huge part of why it's so inviting and colorful.

The energy levels are very well balanced as is the mix of genres, as I mentioned before.

Yes, it does have a lot of pop sensibility to it, but it also has this almost garage style to it, where there are little hints of dirtiness but not over the top. Again, it's all very well balanced, and I think what counts the most here is the songwriting because the songs themselves are actually quite catchy a lot of the time.

They encompass this element of looseness, almost as if certain parts of the songs are improvised, and I really enjoyed that because he got me into the groove.

When you listen to the songs, you can tell they're having fun, and so you begin to have fun as you listen along.

As the record unfolds further, you get elements of punk rock, garage pop, grunge-laced pop rock, and more.

"Thin Walls" demonstrates this amazingly, with a heavier feel in terms of distorted guitars and a slightly Wilder approach.

Throughout all of this, you have the bass guitar that's really giving you a juicy low end but also takes a little walk here and there, and vocals that give you a sense of an early 2000s indie rock vibe.

This song, in particular, has an almost fuzzy overtone throughout the entire thing. The vocals have drive to them, the guitars have that overdrive tone, and the whole thing sort of whales on the guitars. There are lead notes that are doubled up, bending and wailing, and the whole thing just sort of hits with a bit of a punch.

Within those first two tracks, you can already see a huge range in the differences in how they write their songs. So you know that there are plenty of different influences that come into play with this band.

The third track is definitely a danceable one, you have that hint of dance rock, guitars that are juiced up with different effects, energetic percussion and drums, and more melodic style vocals that are cleaner but still sort of in your face. The vocals are not aggressive; they can just be robust, and I like that because it matches the energy of the rest of the band all the time.

If the song has a softer or smoother, more delicate feel, the vocals follow suit.

When the songs portray a bit more of a grunge or punk style approach, the vocals also follow suit.

So again, that balance between the performers in the band is amazing, and it's a huge reason why the bigger picture works perfectly.

Listening to the record, I feel like "Buttercup" is probably going to be a lot of people's favorites. It does have that bright approach, again, massively laced with pop, it's boppy and sort of jumpy, and it's not overdriven.

I personally dig "Thin Walls" the most out of the record, simply because it gives you the overdrive, and I'm a big fan of that melodic fuzz tone approach. These guys pull it off super well.

The last song is called "O.K.", a kind of blend of different approaches, but also has a different direction as well. It branches off to its own thing and feels like it was sort of grunge-influenced and also indie rock-influenced, so it has that 90s aesthetic but also hits the early 2000s indie rock as well.

The guitars are cleaner, and you get into the groove for a while, and then suddenly, towards the end of the song, things get grungy again, which I definitely liked because I wasn't expecting it, and it worked perfectly to change things up and give the song a refresher before it ended.

This was definitely really fun and somewhat unexpected. There are certainly elements about the release that keep you on your toes a bit, and it's just full of charismatic performances from everyone involved.

If you were a fan of indie rock, garage, bits of grunge, pop rock, or just anything that has character and punch, then this record is absolutely going to be for you.

Certainly listen to the whole thing, though, and remember where you heard it first.

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