Returning to the fray after almost 10 years away, The Dreaming Spires’ Normal Town burns with a fire that rages at going quietly into the dying light. Robin and Joe Bennett, along with Jamie Dawson, Tom Collison and Nick Fowler, cast a jaundiced eye at the world around them, realising that home may be where the heart is, but it’s also where alienation, escapism and the drudgery of everyday life can trap you in a web of desperation. When Robin Bennet pleads, “I don’t want to die in a normal town,” it becomes obvious that normalcy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Amidst the ring of guitars, rough and tumble drums and the clatter of keyboards, they find themselves increasing aware of being caught in the mundane. ‘Normal Town’ sounds haunted, filled with a sense of the uncertainty that comes from living in a place, Didcot, declared the most normal in England. A mixed blessing at best, the sense is one would almost rather be from anywhere else. A stately dis-ease frames the piano and guitars while the lyrics spell out the dismal nature of life. “Yeah, there used to be hope but that’s all in the past/ It’s like you’re telling a joke, and nobody laughs when the punchline arrives/ I dream of running away but there’s nowhere to go.” The drums tumble but never seem to find a suitable conclusion.
Ghosts of Pete Townshend haunt the guitars on ‘Normalisation’, the swagger may not be as in your face, but there is no doubting the message. “We can never go back, we can’t live in the past/ But we can work for a future a little better than the last.” Life drains away in ’21st Century Light Industrial’, with each moment offering less and less hope, while there is a hollow ring to the poppy guitars that try convincing you everything is actually fine. The Dreaming Spires know better, singing, “Got to get away from this stale situation/ Tired of looking out at the same old view/ Working every day in the same old place with the same old faces staring at you.”
Robin Bennet makes it clear that from a vantage point 25 years down the road, nothing is quite what it seemed. “You can get to adulthood and be a bit disappointed by it/ Where’s the transcendent experience we were looking for?” The answer may be found in ‘Where I’m Calling From’. Moments matter and you must seize them, “Look back and wonder how/ You know that’s not the way/ So you learn to live today.”
The present moment calls. The Dreaming Spire certainly don’t have all the answers, but Normal Town offers hope in holding moments close to you, because beyond the moments of mundanity there are still moments when dreams can become real.