Avalanche Party – ‘Der Traum Über Alles’ album review: all power but little bite
THE SKINNY: Believe it or not, there are still albums shaped by the pandemic even into 2025. German for “The dream above all else”, Yorkshire garage rock outfit Avalanche Party’s sophomore effort Der Traum Über Alles‘ lofty title was inspired by David Lynch‘s self-help book, an affirmation to cling onto creative pursuit whatever life may throw at you, in frontman Jordan Bell’s case a world tipped upside down by Covid-19.
Guided by earnest reaches for hot-blooded passion and an engulfing aura of drama, Avalanche Party are a band that keenly harbours an agenda to throw you around the room. Blood, sweat, and tears can be tasted amid their gargantuan guitar attack, a strutting rock heft that veers the record into unapologetic rock and roll territory, both sonically and in attitude. No bad thing, and certainly striking such a balance without lapsing into the genre’s cringe clichés, but the trouble is as Der Traum Über Alles rolls along, the feral affrontery starts to nag with a superficiality, a raucous energy that’s skin deep and bereft of any other dimensions.
With Bell and his bass-playing brother Joe having grown up and been home-schooled in the fringe corners of North Yorkshire’s rural moors, it’s surprising to hear so little in the way of a unique character to tie up their undeniable hard rock chops. Distracted by the album’s overall strident swagger, a smorgasbord of the last ten years or so of indie songcraft and eagerly anthemic festival fodder starts to emerge, frustratingly obscuring any of Avalanche Party’s distinct voice.
Decamping to California’s Rancho De La Luna studios in November 2022, famed for Josh Homme’s Desert Sessions, the lauded aura that hovers over the site next to Joshua Tree National Park hasn’t drawn inspired sonic detours or bold deviations from their jabbing punk-lite assault. Flashing teases of a change of pace become choked with their default into going ‘big’ rather than staying put and exploring the new terrain with deeper curiosity, ‘Ecstasy’ initially delicately coaxing with its ruminative breathing space before divebombing into full-throated bombast as per.
Power, however, they wield with aplomb. When Der Traum Über Alles strikes it right, Avalanche Party showcase a wild abandon, both with its unfettered romance and lyrical mine for poetic gems burnished in aggression and a tight but unrestrained rock Mazzatello bludgeon that rarely dims with virility, but amid its bluster, the underwhelming irk that infinitely more biting and creatively stimulating terrain is up for grabs should they dare tread.
For fans of: Anyone that thinks Reading Festival is currently in its golden era.
A concluding comment from Rudolf Nureyev: “I’m really alive when I listen to Avalanche Party.”
Der Traum Über Alles track by track
Release date: February 7th | Producer: Dave Catching | Label: AMK
‘John Coltran’s Moscow Skyscraper’: A bold start, scoring collaged decadence with an explosive kineticism, all members flexing their respective strengths and conjuring an unholy din. A wise opener to the album. [3/5]
‘Nureyev Said It Best’: A descent into carnivalesque jerky eccentricity wavers precariously on irritating but is held back by an amusement ride traverse into a cavernous bridge drizzled with suitably atmospheric brass bits. [3/5]
‘No Neutral’: Here we go. A blistering monster has been summoned for ‘No Neutral’, practicality vibrating with a propulsive, cinematic drive fraught with Bell and Jared Thorpe’s furious guitar pummel. [4/5]
‘Shake the Slack’: The carnival slumps into vaudeville with this one, evoking shuddering pangs of late-2000s lad rock twisted with an attempt at soaring anthemic choruses. No, thank you. [2/5]
‘Ecstasy’’: Slithers into the limelight with its nimble guitar chime, helped by Glen Adkins’ radiant keys that shimmer atop, before falling flat with a limp crescendo of unimaginative grab for anthemic at its phoniest. [2/5]
‘Serious Dance Music’: The album’s samey blur starts to become all too apparent around the six-track mark. Subtle surf guitar and blasts of digital crunch add an ironic shade that helped with its title but plumbs nothing new. [2.5/5]
‘The Noise Between Us’: A wander through a giant sonic expanse that’s begging for a baroque pop arrangement. Bell pulls it off with his strong vocal command, and the eerie synths that percolate at the end flesh a pleasing psych flourish. [3/5]
‘Slinky’: Big band bustle is attempted on ‘Slinky’ with diminishing returns as the song rolls along. Grand rhapsody without any affecting emotional pull or enough wry self-awareness. [2/5]
‘Chainz’: A funereal chiller rumbling with atmospheric clangour courtesy of Kane Waterfield’s pulsing percussion, coated in swirling piano drops and haunting strings. What ‘Slinky’ wishes it was. [3/5]
‘Target’: No frills stomper that trundles along without the frisson it’s reaching for, at odds with the lyrical examination of isolating inadequacies. We’re well and truly feeling the album’s sonic daéjà vu now. [2/5]
‘Collateral Damage’: More of the same. Nice little seaside keys, but we’re all too inured to the album’s frustrating lack of dynamism. [2/5]
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