Dream Big by Soda Blonde
“I know what I am. I know what I could be. Put me in my place but nothing can hold me.”
- ‘Dream Big’, Soda Blonde
Dream Big, the second studio album from Irish band Soda Blonde, is far more than a collection of catchy and cathartic pop songs; it’s a mantra – a mission statement from four lifelong friends. It’s their promise to themselves, and a message to all who come along for the ride: A reminder that life is precious, fragile, and fleeting, so we might as well dream big and hold nothing back.
Following two successful introductory EPs (2019's “Terrible Hands” and 2020's “Isolation Content”), they released their debut album, “Small Talk”, in 2021. The LP was subsequently nominated for RTÉ’s Choice Music Prize for Album of the Year and received rave reviews from Paste Magazine, Atwood Magazine, and The Irish Times, who called it "a record so articulate and expressive that its title has to be a wry in-joke."
The band have grown tremendously in the two years since their debut, and it shows. Whereas “Small Talk” was an anxiety-fuelled coming-of-age record about navigating their twenties, “Dream Big” is a mature awakening to the world at large; one that dives deeper and hits harder than its predecessor.
“It definitely was a conscious titling, that relationship between Small Talk and Dream Big,” the band’s guitarist and producer Adam O’Regan explains. “Small Talk was trying to decipher whether everything meant something or nothing. With Dream Big, we’ve arrived at the point that it means something.”
Press release © Mitch Mosk, 2023.
Tracklist
| 1. | Midnight Show | 3:27 |
| 2. | Bad Machine | 3:28 |
| 3. | Boys | 3:43 |
| 4. | Dream Big | 4:57 |
| 5. | Space Baby | 4:21 |
| 6. | WWDWD | 3:38 |
| 7. | An Accident | 4:59 |
| 8. | My First Name | 4:10 |
| 9. | Why Die For Danzig | 4:38 |
| 10. | Less Than Nothing | 4:30 |
| 11. | Going Out | 7:19 |
Credits
PRODUCED BY SODA BLONDE
RECORDED AT BLACKMOUNTAIN STUDIOS, DUNDALK
ENGINEERED BY PETER BALDWIN
MIXED BY ADAM O’REGAN
MASTERED BY AIDAN MCGOVERN AT ACADEMY OF SOUND
SODA BLONDE ARE:
FAYE O’ROURKE
ADAM O’REGAN
DONAGH SEAVER O’LEARY
DYLAN LYNCH
ALL LYRICS BY FAYE O’ROURKE*
MUSIC ARRANGED AND PERFORMED BY SODA BLONDE
STRING & BRASS ARRANGEMENTS ON ‘MIDNIGHT SHOW’
& ‘MY FIRST NAME’ BY ADAM O’REGAN
STRINGS PERFORMED BY THE GLAS QUARTET:
AILBHE CLANCY - VIOLIN
FRANCESCA DE NARDI - VIOLIN
ANNEMARIE MCGAHON - VIOLA
DAVIDE FORTI - CELLO
LOMAN SHERLOCK - TRUMPET
BRIAN MURPHY - BASS TROMBONE
COVER ART PHOTOGRAPHED BY PATRICIO CASSINONI
CONCEPT & ART DIRECTION BY SODA BLONDE
