Customer Reviews

Remembrance Days

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Whenever I listen to this album, or any other material from TDA, I think about the good old times as a student in the late 80s, early 90s. Beautiful melodies, melancholic at times, and always brilliantly mastered. In a way, I'm glad not too many people know of this little gem.

There aren't words in the english language to describe this pop gem.This recording will definately ensnare you completey in it's grasp, from the very first song.Nick Laird cloud is an amazing song writer and puts to shame so called word poets like Dylan and Van Morrison.By far one of THE best recordings of the 20th century..A MUST!!!!

The trick to topping or maintaining a debut album featuring a sound unlike the danceable New Romantic/Second British Invasion sound of Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet is a hard and rocky ground, especially with a single like "Life In A Northern Town." Well, the Dream Academy's second term, titled Remembrance Days, has them maintaining that same sound, Nick Laird-Clowes's gentle vocals and guitars as well as co-producing work, Kate St. John's oboe and cor anglais, and Gilbert Gabriel's keyboards.

The reflection of a summer spent at a rented house on the shore that one really enjoyed staying at drives the dreamy "Indian Summer" which gets backing vocal support from J.D. Souther and Lindsey Buckingham, the latter who co-produced this song. There's a basso Indian-sounded chant mid-song, lending to the atmosphere.

"The Lessons Of Love" benefits from a lilting guitar and an overall gentle feel and backing choir. When Laird-Clowes sings against leaving the city of love and moving to the valley of reason, I see a true romantic at work there who believes anybody, rich or poor, even a self-made liar, can learn the lesson. This song was produced by Patrick Leonard.

"Humdrum" is another portrait of the industrial city, of the workers whose labours benefit the higher-ups, who live in a world of deadlines and are wound up so tight in this dog-eat-dog situation.

The soft percussion and the haunting aura of "Power To Believe" reminds me of Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" telling the story of a privilege-born man who turns his back on that to find a deeper truth, and the hard trials he undergoes. At the end he says "Keep me warm and dry/where other men are worrying/and other men must die/and when the lies are spoken/give endurance to the weak/and when the heart of man is broken/give the power to believe."

"Hampstead Girl" is a song of personal woes in the lonely city, and how one yearns to do whatever to cheer her up, but the timing's never right, so she remains with the blue in her eyes that look at the grey of the town. A leisurely mid-paced sound, with St. John's vocalizing reminiscent of Christine McVie.

The title of the album is taken from a lyric in the refreshing "In The Hands Of Love." The most upbeat song, a modern look back at the days of flower power and the Summer of Love, extols people: "Now that the war is over, put your hands in the hands of love." The second best song here.

"Ballad in 4/4" has a man wanting to hold onto everything despite living a life of lies, having an affair with a married woman and falling in love with a single girl but not dumping the other woman. His deeming take-home pay as the false security as opposed to the love that really makes him rich belies a more romantic nature concealed.

The folly of indecision is explored in "Doubleminded" which has a lush strings-synth section. Then the quiet minimalist guitar and oboe ditty about opening up to love because "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime." This was produced by Lindsey Buckingham and Richard Dashut as well as Laird-Clowes and Hugh Padgham.

The last song, "In Exile," is a harrowing sobering narrative, with music to match, of people exiled from countries like Argentina and Chile, recalling images of national strikes, civil unrest, soldiers firing at students, and people ending up as los desaparecidos. The tempo briefly ratchets a notch as Laird-Clowes narrates the events taking place before yielding to an angelic choir. The ending has a hopeful note, "someday we'll return there... someday we'll be free there in the land where we were born." The best song on the album.

A worthy second debut, with the same mix of reflective songs, the woeful tales of the forbidding urban jungle. And the change of producers, to Hugh Padgham of the Police and Phil Collins fame didn't hurt either. An underrated effort that should've done better.

What a great forgotten group. A very hard to get album is finally available. This CD brings back a lot of memories. This is a "whatever happened to" group that was forgotten but this music embodies a great sense of love, lost and gained and a very memorable track from the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Don't miss out on the Dream Academy, a group well ahead of its time and a very personable CD with some great songs. Be prepared to be put in a "Dream-like" state of melancholy.

Given that most radio oriented material (i.e., hits) rely on beats, hooks and heavy dynamic probably doomed the Dream Academy to one hit wonder status after the global success of "Life In A Northern Town." That song relied deeply on atmospherics and carried onto radio on the strength of its "Hey ma ma ma" hook. At best, the most Dream Academy could hope for was to replicate that first single and hope the warm memories of their debut could help them build their success to the next level.

With "Remembrance Days," you can certainly say they tried. "Indian Summer," the melancholy diary of a May - September romance gallantly tries to recreate the mood of that first hit, but comes up short. The blame partially rests on producers Richard Daschut, Lindsay Buckingham and Hugh Padgham, who seemed intent on transforming much of Dream Academy's baroque pop more into the slicker sheen of Thompson Twins or Phil Collins. (Think "In The Air Tonight" while listening to "Humdrum.") That's not to say that "Remembrance Days" is any less an album than the debut. In fact, the best song here, "The Power To Believe" was featured in the John Hughes movie "Planes Trains and Automobiles," a song like "In Exile" shows increased musical sophistication from the debut, and "In The Hands Of Love" could have been a hit ala Thompson Twins' "Doctor Doctor." It's the album's sole cover song that is "Remembrance Days'" weakest moment, The Korgis' ballad "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime."

All in all, a marvelous moody piece of work. Worth seeking out if Renaissance music from the mid 80's is your cup of tea.

The Dream Academy's second album, 1987's "Remembrance Days", is not as great as their absolute masterpiece debut. David Gilmour, who co-produced all but one of the tracks from the debut, doesn't participate here. Every track here is co-produced by Hugh Padgham, who worked with closely with Phil Collins and Genesis throughout the `80s. Now, I'm a tremendous fan of '80s Genesis and '80s Phil, and the idea of bringing in Padgham to produce the Dream Academy seems totally promising. The results ARE generally very strong, but, it seems that Gilmour and Nick Laird-Clowes had a major chemistry that helped give the debut its unique, arresting atmosphere. The sound overall on "Remembrance Days" leans considerably more toward a typical late `80s pop-rock sound. Plus, the songwriting is overall a noticeable step down from the previous album.

Don't get me wrong, though. There's still a lot of magic here. I wouldn't call this a sophomore slump--it's still well-worth checking out, with many tracks that rank among the Dream Academy's best ever, which is saying a lot. "The Power To Believe" is a terrifically melodic, haunting, atmospheric story-song--it does strongly recall Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight", and in turn, it seems to have influenced Phil's subsequent "We Fly So Close" from his 1993 album "Both Sides". "Humdrum" is a mesmerizing, evocative song with incisive lyrics about the rat race people find themselves in, and it's additionally punctuated by a great saxophone solo from Kate St John. The wonderfully breezy "Hampstead Girl" spotlights elegant, dreamy background vocals from Kate, as does the brilliant, transcendant retooling of "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" which also displays her masterful use of oboe--the latter track was co-produced by Lindsey Buckingham, and it's clearly superior to the hit version by the group Korgis (thankfully they didn`t leave this track off the album as they had originally intended). Also, "In The Hands of Love" is an anthemic and highly effective track.

A lot of the tracks though are frustrating because they're quite strong, but suffer from botched execution. "The Lesson Of Love", which was co-written and co-produced by Patrick Leonard (of Madonna fame) is a really nice, breezy song, but suffers from Nick's weak lead vocal. "Here" is pretty, but has a frustratingly rambling, aimless melody. The somewhat funky "Doubleminded" is infectiously melodic, but has some rather grating synth and is a bit slight. "Indian Summer" was also co-produced by Lindsey Buckingham (it also features him on background vocals), and it bears more than a passing resemblance to "Life In A Northern Town", right from the opening notes, as well as with the chanting on the fade--it's really strong, but the production doesn't really do it justice, and it ends up coming across as a bit sappy. The confessional "Ballad In 4/4", as the title perhaps suggests, is somewhat dull. And their reach exceeded their grasp on the album closing epic "In Exile (For Rodrigo Rojas)"--it's ambitious and it does grab you, but it fails to really hold on; it`s rather disjointed and lacking in direction--it doesn`t feel fully realized.

In the end, even with all of the weaknesses of the album, there's still very much to like/ love on "Remembrance Days". With a little more fine-tuning, this album could have easily been another masterpiece, but as it is, it falls tantalizingly short. Over the course of the album`s 50+ minute running time, there's quite a lot to mull over, and a lot of it's great, for sure. The debut album is a better place to start if you're new to the Dream, but you'll definitely want to move on to this one. Short-lived though they were, The Dream Academy were an incredible band, with Nick Laird-Clowes being one of the most brilliant artists in the history of music, and "Remembrance Days" is solidly recommended.

I bought this beautiful Album on vinyl about 13 years ago and let it collect dust for quite sometime, well forgive my ignorance because my existence has been blessed for it's presence in my collection! "Hampstead Girl" is the most gorgeous piece of music this band has ever recorded and the ballad that follows it, the airy, ethereal "Here" is stunning as well. It's available as an import only, but if you find it in any format, anywhere, grab it! A fine collection of beautifully rendered pop tunes.

The Dream Academy's second album Rememberence Days is one of the most incredible recordings of our time. It is filled with images and feelings that are timeless.

This is a great Dream Academy album, and with every listen I'm able to appreciate more of it. I'm not here to review it though. I wanted to let any serious fans of the Dream Academy know about two other projects that might be of interest. The first is "The Invisible Circus" film soundtrack--still available used here at Amazon. This was released around 2000, and the instrumental score (about 7-10 tracks) was composed by Nick Laird-Clowes. A few other Laird-Clowes originals are included under the guise of his recent band, Trashmonk. While the instrumental score tracks are fondly reminescent of the Dream Academy's folkish melodies, the Trashmonk songs are decidedly less relaxed (and didn't appeal much to me personally).

The other CD I wanted to note here is by a producer/DJ who goes by the name of Dario G. His CD, "Sunmachine," which is also available here at Amazon, is best described as pre-millennium electric anthems. It sounds a little like the music from Chicane's "Behind the Sun," only less trance-inflected. At any rate, the first track on "Sunmachine," is Sunchyme. This is only relevant on account of the song's base melody which derives heavily from Dream Academy's Life in a Northern Town, right down to the genuine inclusion of the chorus "Hey-oh-ma-ma-ma's." The original DA song isn't sampled quite enough for this to be a remix, but at the same time, Sunchyme contains so many elements of Life in a Northern Town, that it can't really be considered an altogether separate song. Anyone who might have heard this featured on a TV commercial for contact lenses a few years ago can now exhale. I, for one, am sleeping better now that I've found its source. The rest of Dario G's CD isn't bad either...given its age.

I hope this encourages someone out there.

Indian Summer - a beautifully evocative track, perfectly written, arranged, and produced to help you smell, feel, see, touch, and taste the Indian Summer.