Album Review – Dalton Domino’s “Feverdreamer”
You know you’ve stumbled upon a great songwriter when the music gets in the way. You know you’ve stumbled upon an even better one when they don’t allow it to. You know you have something special when no matter what style or instrumentation brought to a song, it still doesn’t feel like it does it justice—that even assigning genre to something almost diminishes it’s weight somehow. Music itself even seems like an inferior medium from the way the words resonate in the mind, heart, and spirit.
This no man’s land between genres and mediums is where some of the greatest songwriters in history were forced to reside during much of their careers, often relying on time to reveal their eventual brilliance. Sometimes you just have to appreciate a song for what it is, and shove all other concerns aside. That’s what Dalton Domino does on his latest release Feaverdreamer, and the result is arguably the best record of his career.
It’s a career for Dalton Domino that is kind of a mess at the moment. Last month we were discussing whether he’d quit music for good. We weren’t being fatalistic or presumptuous, it’s kind of what Domino alluded to in a missive he posted on social media, though you also knew at the time this was Dalton being Dalton. If you’re trying to figure out a method to Domino’s madness, you’re not alone, and that company also probably includes Dalton Domino himself.
This Lubbock-based songwriter is basically winging it at this point. He’s always had a hard time finding his place within the Texas music scene. Is he a songwriter first? A future headliner who needs to be flanked by leads guitar player putting on a raucous stage show? Something in between? Is he country, or more of a rock-infused alt-folk kind of guy just as apt to call upon keyboards to back him up as a guitar? Whatever you want to call it, he’s just released an album that might be one of the year’s best.
There’s no shortage of quarantine-spawned Coronavirus acoustic albums out there glutting the marketplace with hastily-written tracks captured on scratchy recordings. You can’t blame artists for trying to recuperate some of that lost touring revenue. But even when a performer is not out there trying to rhyme things with “toilet paper,” you still question the wisdom of releasing good songs with bad, living room production.
That’s not what what you get from Dalton Domino’s Feverdreamer, at all, even though that’s sort of what you’d expect Dalton to do at this point in his career. He just released a new record in late August. Has he really had the time to replenish the stockpile of quality songs since then? The answer is a resounding “yes.”
But before we even get to the songs themselves, don’t approach Feaverdreamer as an acoustic album recorded at home, even though technically, that’s what it is. What Dalton does is what so many don’t do when conducting this exercise, which is making sure there is enough variety of approaches and moods between songs to break up the humdrum of your average unplugged effort.
Listening to Feaverdreamer, you don’t even recognize it’s an acoustic album at all. Adding just a little bit of overdub here and there, transitioning to keys in a couple of moments, apparently asking a neighbor to add some harmonies to a chorus or two makes Feverdreamer feel very rich and alive, and you almost don’t buy Dalton’s story this was recorded DIY from the way the guitar tones come bursting out clear and crisp. You even get those little nuances in volume, tone, and fret noise that really help put you right in the room with Dalton, one on one, letting the words and sounds wash over you in a way you can feel in your bones.
The volume between tracks is the only faux pas of Feverdreamer. The song “Either Way” is so much louder than the others, for example. This is a mastering issue fair to blame on COVID-19, and a fast-to-market approach. Aside from this, if nothing else, this record should be a template for every artist considering this exercise of how to do it right, and in a way that proves acoustic albums cannot only equal the quality of studio efforts, it can best them if done right.
But again, it’s the songs that you come here for. The opening number “We’re All Gonna Die” feels like one of the many Coronavirus-inspired tracks that you’ve heard dozens of times at this point via grainy livestreams. But from there, Feverdreamer is one haymaker landed squarely after another, delivered in an environment that demands your undivided attention.
In the months preceding Feverdreamer and the Coronaviurs quarantine, Dalton Domino had booked himself on an acoustic house show tour. This was the perfect setup to recording this album, where he had to hold attentive audiences in intimate settings, experimenting with arrangement, tempo, volume, and approach to keep people entertained with limited resources. Capturing all that on record after this experience became easy, and along with everything else, it reveals what a delicate ear Dalton has, and how good of a guitar player he is.
We could broach a discussion about the themes and movements of the songs themselves, but almost like assigning them a style or genre, this would feel like a reduction of the efforts, fraught with spoilers and feeble attempts to confine this poetry to an individual perspective. You just have to listen. And if you do, and intently, you may just find the defining record of the quarantine era.
Two guns up (9/10)
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Purchase Feverdreamer
KT
April 21, 2020 @ 9:28 am
Best I Ever Had is my favorite on the record, but I like them all. I really don’t have any Dalton Domino songs I don’t like. The heartbreak songwriting is just my speed. Love the music this dude makes
Brandon
April 21, 2020 @ 10:18 am
I’ve never enjoyed Dalton Domino. I listen to every album and try to like it but I can’t. He’s not a good songwriter. There’s no poetry in his lyrics. Most of his songs are composed of stock phrases. Even the song titles are recycled. It’s derivative. And the production does it no justice. It just sounds like “edgy” Contemporary Christian music. I just don’t understand the admiration.
Bad One
April 21, 2020 @ 10:28 am
Slow music like this puts me to sleep. Can’t listen to it. Same thing with Jason Isbell.
wayne
April 21, 2020 @ 12:33 pm
Oh no Bad One.
Now you have gone and done it. Now brace your self for the Isbell contingent.
Blackh4t
April 21, 2020 @ 1:13 pm
Yeah, its ok, but I’m not feeling any amazing songwriting. As a writer myself I’m used to feeling so small in the presence of an amazing writer, but honestly no envy of skill here.
Still sounds nice, but not understanding the high rating.
Rooster Cruiser
April 27, 2020 @ 9:42 am
Agreed. When I listen to Isbell, Felker, Moreland, et al, I feel like burning my guitar because I know I’ll never write that way.
Everything I’ve heard from this guy (and, honestly, from much of what is so popular in Texas) doesn’t wow me at all.
“Damned if I go/Damned if I stay/I guess with you it’s gonna cut either way”
That’s a chorus we’re supposed to consider great?
Jay
April 21, 2020 @ 2:55 pm
Dalton is a great songwriter and this album far surpassed my expectation for such a rushed release. Kudos
Jerseyboy
April 21, 2020 @ 4:31 pm
I like it, thanks Trig for letting us know this was put out, hope the best for him!
albert
April 21, 2020 @ 5:15 pm
loving his vocals , loving the production/mood on the two tracks posted . LIKING the songs …
LIKING . maybe a tad generic ? . I suspect that sitting with the whole record it could work an unsuspected magic .
and that counts . that counts big time I think .
Charlie
April 22, 2020 @ 5:04 am
The first 2 paragraphs of this review just confuse me. Then later comes this gem . . .
‘We could broach a discussion about the themes and movements of the songs themselves, but almost like assigning them a style or genre, this would feel like a reduction of the efforts, fraught with spoilers and feeble attempts to confine this poetry to an individual perspective.’
What??
A song by definition is words and music. Judging the greatness of a song on lyrics alone is wrong. If music is considered to be an inferior medium then just publish it as a poem. Or record it a cappella.
But this artist chose not to do that. He chose to pick up an instrument and perform a song. How well did he accomplish his task? Pretty well it seems, even overcoming the technical issues the budget didn’t quite cover.
A singer with a guitar is always going to be the pinnacle of human expression on this site (as long as the guitar is down in the mix), but this review should be re-written after the Ambien wears off.
I give the album a 7, and the review a 3.
(I know, ouch–right? Bored here, I guess.)
Trigger
April 22, 2020 @ 7:54 am
With all due respect Charlie, you missed the bigger point I was trying to make. Of course music is made of music. But top lyricists often struggle with how to present their music, and I think that’s a given among singer/songwriters. As Townes Van Zandt used to say, he was a poet and this confounding music stuff gets in the way.
Clearly some folks don’t think this record is as great as I did, and I respect that. And the ones that do aren’t commenting. This is the same misunderstanding that goes down every single time I post “Song of the Year” stuff.
I stand behind the review, and the grade.
jf
April 22, 2020 @ 1:19 pm
I am a huge Dalton fan, and agree with your review and think this is a great album. And its a great sounding album.
Dirty Dave
April 22, 2020 @ 3:07 pm
I think we all need two things right now:
1. To get laid
2. For Evan Felker to emerge out of the backwoods of Idaho and start playing songs for us on Instagram Live.
I actually like this album, Trig and thanks for the review and bringing our attention to new music when we all need something to get us through it.
Ok, I am going to go see Rosy Palm and her 5 sisters now again.
PAUL L SPARKMAN II
April 22, 2020 @ 6:51 pm
To back up Trigger…
Level Me- 2:43——>end
The board lays the foundation, lead panned hard to one side, dark bass fills the void, voice cracking, lays down the lyrics.
It’s beautiful. Put it on a good set of speakers or headphones. There’s a TON of depth in this album. You can feel the pick hit each string if your system is balanced. Dalton nailed this one. His last album was solid. This one is (mastering levels and tone aside) an incredible work of art.
Benny Lee
April 23, 2020 @ 10:08 am
This is really good. It’s not a barn burner, but it’s not supposed to be. It also doesn’t fall into the “music that the general public will like” realm. The biggest strength of this record may be its subtlety.
Drew
April 24, 2020 @ 8:29 am
Ever since I heard “Corners” I have desperately wanted to love Dalton. I think sparse productions can be the best thing for an awe inspiring lyricist to spill transcendent themes into your soul. I really just don’t see Dalton as having the writing chops you’re referring to. It just sounds like the “deeper cut” tracks you’ll find on mainstream country albums just made with less of a pop/hip hop sound and less catchiness. It isn’t bad, but I’d be reluctant to call this album a songwriting masterpiece. There isn’t much going on beyond the words on the page, he hasn’t painted us a strong enough backdrop to send us to the peaks of aesthetic rapture and infuse us with the mystery that just is the brilliance of songwriting. The album just feels tired as an album. For a quarantine ‘project’, it is one of the better I’ve heard.
Trigger
April 24, 2020 @ 2:27 pm
Clearly there is a disconnect between a handful of people who think this record is incredible, and other who feel just ho hum. I cannot explain this disconnect, except to say I have gone back and re-listened to it, and still feel the way I did when I reviewed it, and it feels like the same disconnect whenever I cover what I consider top-caliber songwriting.
Also, I didn’t call it a masterpiece. That’s a strong word I am very reserved with.
kapam
May 10, 2020 @ 8:02 pm
I’m a huge fan of Dalton and any new output from him is just an unexpected bonus (considering all the rumors about quitting the business).
My preference is for more accompaniment than just guitar & voice, but I still love the song writing, no matter what.
I really believe DD would’ve been a world-renowned artist if he’d arisen in the 90’s or early 00’s.