Description
When tUnE-yArDs appeared in the late 2000s, some listeners weren’t sure if their radical sound had staying power. Well over a decade after Bird-Brains’ release, Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner remain inventive and unmistakable on Better Dreaming. Their sixth album takes inspiration from the fractured, turbulent state of everyday life in the 2020s — including their own parenthood. While tUnE-yArDs’ sonic patchworks have often found the serendipitous harmony in spontaneity, Better Dreaming feels like more of a piece than many of their previous albums. As on Sketchy.’s finest tracks, Brenner and Garbus deliver emotionally direct, musically cohesive songs that don’t sacrifice any of their time-tested creativity or intellect. One such moment is “Heartbreak,” the soulful opening statement that begins the album with harmonies that stretch out like sunbeams. Garbus’ voice is still the most important building block of tUnE-yArDs’ music, and it shines on every song here, though she saves some of her sweetest vocals — and most robust high notes — for singing about punching a liar in the eye on “Never Look Back.” Virtuosic performances like this one and “Get Through,” a graceful, doo wop-tinged ode to survival, should vanquish any lingering assumptions that tUnE-yArDs’ freewheeling sonics lack control, even when they hark back to their earliest days with the found sounds, drum loops, and noise woven through “Suspended” and “See You There.” Garbus and Brenner’s historically deep commitment to political commentary also flows through Better Dreaming. It’s most overt on the slinky call to collective action “Swarm,” but the insistent joy of “Limelight,” a song that grew from dancing with their toddler to George Clinton, feels like an act of radical self-care. This exuberance is all the more meaningful thanks to tUnE-yArDs’ acknowledgment of pain and fear. On “How Big Is the Rainbow,” Garbus uses the power of a shimmying disco beat to transform “a hate inside this heart” into “a love that makes you whole,” and she combats present-day fears with hope for the future on the hypnotic title track. When she howls “This is where you sing your own gospel/This is where you sing yourself into existence” on “Sanctuary,” it’s the perfect summation of Better Dreaming’s clear-eyed yet uplifting, sophisticated yet innocent antidote to the challenges of its era. Sixteen years after their debut, tUnE-yArDs’ methods and messages may be more relevant than ever. ~ Heather Phares
