Only in Dreams - Delta Heavy

An uncanny blend of destructive brostep and dancefloor drum n bass, Delta Heavy's "Only in Dreams" is constantly fighting itself about how it wants to sound. And even after that, it's still incredibly boring.

Many would argue that monotony is the single worst sin for a work of art, and the clothes of monotony fit "Only in Dreams" quite well. Delta Heavy take it upon themselves to do absolutely nothing for the duration of this LP, with about 60% of it being inoffensive commercial DnB, 38% of it being directionless brostep, and the final 2% of it being "Revenge", "A.I." and "Replicant, the tracks that do the large majority of the heavy lifting. Sure, the production isn't half bad — Delta Heavy do a good job at keeping the mixdowns mostly clean enough, the vocals and sampling do their job, and there aren't any awful technical elements, even if much of it (especially on the heavier side) feels quite dated — it simply just doesn't do enough. Many of the commercial-oriented cuts play it far too safe and far too repetitive, and unfortunately they make up the majority of the tracklist, and who'd've thunk it, "Only in Dreams" is quite derivative as a result. By some godforsaken miracle, however, the fatigued tropes of this project aren't even the biggest flaw — though it does come close. No, what ticks me off the most is that "Only in Dreams" has no idea what on earth it's doing. Delta Heavy manage to bring negative consistency to this album, something I didn't even know was possible, especially in an album that posits a more commercial outlook. You'd think it's built to be a serviceable, easy-to-listen-to album, at least, and then about halfway through "Only in Dreams" pulls up with some of the most random heavy cuts possible, all of which are certainly not serviceable nor easy to listen to. This section is made even more random by the sci-fi sampling that populates it, and normally I'd be stolidy on board with a sci-fi motif, but here it comes out of absolutely nowhere — straight after three quite bright opener tracks (excluding the intro), and followed up with two more bright and serviceable tracks to finish, tracks which completely ignore whatever was going on in the bass-centric sci-fi section. "Only in Dreams" seems to argue with itself a lot — on one hand, it wants to be boppy and commercial, and on the other it wants to be heavy and destructive. I have no qualms with either style, but clearly Delta Heavy forgot that they needed to weld the two together properly, because in its current state, "Only in Dreams" is tonally indecisive.

Tonally indecisive and still bland. Impressive, really. Still, though, I'd be lying if I said this was terrible, because it's not technically appalling. I dislike the structure, tonality, and quite a few of the tracks, but Delta Heavy's production is still pretty solid, and the three tracks I highlighted as standout ones are very good in their own right. All in all, it could be worse, but please don't make it worse because I don't think I could handle that. Fine, I accept it, I don't like this.