Bedroom Walls
Issue #28
All Good Dreamers Pass This Way (Baria)
By Caroline Evans
Published: June 1st, 2006 | 9:09am
If Marc Bolan had been a lonely art-history student instead of a glam god, and if he had decided to form a college-rock band to perform to the sherpa hat-wearing masses inside firetrap coffeehouses instead of forming T. Rex, his band might have sounded a lot like Bedroom Walls.
On their new album, All Good Dreamers Pass This Way, Bedroom Walls channel Bolan primarily with chief songwriter Adam Goldman’s lead vocals. That and ridiculous song titles like “Who’s Been Driving Round For Days” and “Do the Buildings and Cops Make You Smile?” It’s exactly this sort of serious hilarity that characterizes the band’s sophomore release.
Still, the album is quite ambient, blending string and horn arrangements with slow, dreamy guitar licks and jazzy progressions to form the pretentious psych-rock the band has dubbed “Romanticore.” According to the band’s Web site, this genre includes elements like “staring at the ceiling,” “knowing your girlfriend is happier now,” and “sighing too loudly and too often.”
Despite the band’s talents for cute description and funny song titles, Bedroom Walls are too good to be a just a gimmick. “Somewhere in Newhall,” a beautiful, mostly instrumental track, loops classical violin arrangements á la Owen Pallett. And just when the band has got you taking them seriously, they say something like, “We just want to make people sad.” I’m not sure whether they’ll make you cry; but they’ll definitely make you laugh.
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