Dream Your Life Away

The thing that draws most people to the Spanic Boys is the heartfelt and deft execution of roots rock, and for bands with such a following any experiment is risky. On Dream Your Life Away the band edged toward psychedelia and a harder sound, with disastrous results for their popularity. This isn't to say that the individual songs don't have merit, because many of them are very good. What is lacking is a sense of continuity and flow over the course of the album. The grim Byrds-esque guitar rave-up "What Was Is Gone" is preceded and followed by rockabilly pieces that are simple and sweet, and the discontinuity is a bit jarring. At times on this album the disparate elements do fuse into something brilliant, as proved by the edgy title cut. Unfortunately there are other points where you can hear good musicianship, good singing, and a good lyric, but the result just isn't compelling. Still, this album is worth having for such cuts as "Everything Not Right," which is as joyous a road song as any band has ever recorded.