I’ve been taking trips through this record on and off since its release in September 2022, letting the tracks catch me in their own time as I’d clean or do some work. I’m not the best at giving things my full attention, but one thing I can say about Last One Down‘s debut album Failing Dreams is that it will find a way to grab you, sit you down, and say what it came to say.
The titular opening track lays the mood down immediately, the guitar feedback howls over the sputtering drums into a familiar melodic punk style that lays out the premise, “These are the failing dreams of humanity, the failing dreams of you and me.” A proper thematic introduction to an album about the often inescapable feeling that things are bleak and not necessarily going to just magically get better.
The disillusionment is palpable as we move through the album, “50” and “In Circles” echo the same feelings of a loss of control, lamenting the beaten paths that we are expected to walk. The outro of the latter track is just the singer pleading to the narrative powers at be to just stop as the song fades.
There are spots of optimism in this album, maybe not for society, but “Stand Up” offers the option of trying to claw something good out of hands of the dark powers at be. The catchy “Coming Home” is still a regular track in my playlists, a classic anthemic punk song that would be at-home in the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack of your mind.
That’s what resonates with me about this album, it’s familiar, I could hear these songs among Millencolin or Lagwagon easily. The album feels cohesive musically and emotionally, it wants to remind you that the problems in our society have gone unsolved for decades now and the only way through is together. “Your enemies will never fade, they’ll never fade away.”
It can be hard to emotionally resonate with bleak songs about lies and deceit when you just want to feel happiness. Behind the anger of this album, songs like “Eye” and “Lies & Promises” show a balance of optimism with the austere. The closing track “We Make Us” is maybe the happiest song on the entire record. “When I’m with you I can do anything”, the anthemic chorus rises with harmonies like a flower creeping through a crack in the sidewalk.
Failing Dreams feels like your most comfortable flannel in the closet. It makes sense when you find out it was produced/mixed/mastered by Paul Miner of BuzzBomb whose put out gems from Atreyu, New Found Glory, and Thrice. Go grab the record, or in the very least hit Last One Down up on Bandcamp, and start up a circle pit in your living room with your sturdiest pets.