Album review: Dreams That Feel Like Falling, by Cowboy Dan

Cowboy Dan formed in 2015, released EPs in 2017 and 2021, pressed those EPs onto a vinyl release in 2023 and now, finally, have a debut album. Dreams That Feel Like Falling is filled with the jangly, poppy rock that the band has been making for years. It leans a little quicker and harder than either EP, and thematically finds its songwriters closer to middle age than their teenage years.  

Not that they have ever been immature, but ‘Change’ asks if smoking weed on Friday night is still a thing, and ‘Autumn Leaves’, an upbeat ditty about the irreversibility of death, notes that “now we’re 33”. There are more carefree days in the past than the future.
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Perhaps this is why they have sped up a little. The first three tracks kick off with melodic lead guitar that becomes countermelodic when Leighton Edwards’ vocals come in. It's a method familiar to Smiths fans, which these four surely are, and they work it beautifully.

The pattern is broken by the oompah-barn-dance-boom-crash of ‘Murakami’, which has no need of cleverness and is great fun. Its thumping rhythm is paired with lyrics about being lost in a social media haze and getting literally anything delivered to your door. Quintessential Cowboy Dan: Just because good things can (and do) let you down, that’s no reason not to dance.

Especially through the first half of the album, the jangle is strong and what Cowboy Dan have long called their “happy-sad” music leans happy. On their shorter releases, this is the mood that they set before sitting you down and putting you through an emotional wringer. Old slow-burn masterpieces ‘Wintercoat’ and ‘St Stephen's Green’ don't have a counterpart on Dreams That Feel Like Falling. It's a deliberate decision that means the album needs to pull a new trick.

That new trick bares its teeth in the frantic minute-long trash of ‘Whole Thing Round’. The volume and tempo lift up, and the album as well. You can hear the band opening new doors and you will, I guarantee, yell along to the repeated chorus.

On the other hand, what qualifies as the album’s slow stuff is left slightly stranded. Standing Still, a sad song about going nowhere, gets the full band treatment and a driving snare drum. With a bigger downward gearshift it would tug heartstrings. This solo acoustic version on Instagram shows how. 

The boldest and best tracklisting decision is to hold back Temporary. The tenth of eleven tracks, this song smashes every target that Cowboy Dan aims for on this album. A melodic crash of trebly guitars accompanies happily hurried vocals about all sorts of troubling things. Because there really is a bright side to seasickness and anxiety if you know where to look. It’s all jilted just far enough off-centre to make jumping along a slightly fraught commitment. Plus the harmonies give it an extra kick. Delightful, unimprovable stuff.

Dreams That Feel Like Falling is neither a bare restatement of Cowboy Dan's appreciable past, nor an unneeded reinvention. It shows a noisy side we've never heard before and it tells us that adult life has kicked in. As indie rockers, ‘Temporary’ is a career high water mark. 

After two whip-tight EPs this is effectively Cowboy Dan's difficult second album. They've handled it deftly and built a nice addition to their discography. They deserve for their audience to grow along with it.
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Cowboy Dan bring the album release tour to Last Place on Friday October 3, supported by Echo Children and Halcyon Birds. It'll be awesome.