There’s a real sense, listening to You Wish, that Dream Nails have unlocked something they’ve been hovering around for years but until now have never pounced on.
The anger and the politics are still very much there, but it’s like they’ve been re-wired into something that’s more instinctual. The results are remarkable.
‘The Only Way Out Is Through’ makes that clear immediately. There are unmistakable Debbie Harry echoes in the vocal phrasing, with flashes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ physical ‘snap’ or ‘jolt’, but it never actually tips into pastiche, which is very difficult to refrain from.
Instead, it feels as if Dream Nails are planting the flag in favour of their own lineage. It’s always great to listen to an opener that sets the tone with intent in one go, and it’s even better when, after crossing your fingers for the following few tracks, you’re not disappointed.
And that’s how ‘This Is Water’ follows it: with deceptive simplicity. Musically, it’s stripped back, everything placed with care, each part earning its keep – like how a good chef will let prime cuts and quality produce speak rather than masking the flavours.
A little breakaway here to draw attention to the fantastic story behind the album’s title:
If You Wish has a centrepiece, it’s ‘Organoid’. One of the album’s singles, it’s also the most riotous moment. Pixies-adjacent in its loud-quiet tension and feral humour, the song’s both funny and genuinely unsettling. Lines about data, bodies, and “the little brains with eyes” turn technological anxiety into something visceral and absurd, and when Mimi Jasson snaps “Shut up!”, it feels earned rather than performative.
‘The Spirit Does Not Burn’ keeps the energy high, landing somewhere near the harder, swaggering end of Kasabian’s spectrum, while ‘Pack My Wax’ shows real maturity in its pacing. When the chorus drops and the guitar gain blooms insto something shoegaze-soft, almost Asobi Seksu-like, it’s nothing short of thrilling. Dream Nails could easily have made a one-speed record. That they chose not to is one of You Wish’s great strengths.
Some tracks in the middle ‘stretch’ less immediately, but they never feel like filler. Instead, they act as connective tissue, giving the bigger moments space to breathe (I know this can sound needlessly superlative but give it a listen and you’ll know exactly what I mean).
‘The Information’ is another standout lyrically, with its imagery of saturation, sensation, and overload capturing contemporary themes of data collection and massive resource drain from processing centres. “Gonna download all the information / I’m gonna implode at the detonation” might sound hyperbolic at first but, concerningly, is not.
The closing run then seals it. ‘Zeros’ and ‘A Sign’ give Mimi Jasson’s vocals real room to shine, especially on the final track, which feels quietly epiphanic without lapsing into sentimentality. There’s optimism here, but it’s hard-won and definitely not naïve.
You Wish sounds like a band fully stepping into themselves. Dream Nails have been recalibrated, and it’s their most definitive work to date.
