“Wasting Time” feels like a hazy photograph you found in an old shoebox – sun-faded, edges curling, but loaded with the sort of emotional weight that makes you stare at it a bit too long. ARENTUMINE, Portland’s bedroom-born, guitar-washed dream-pop project, clearly isn’t here to churn out quick dopamine hits. T
It kicks off with The Pact, all reverb-drenched chords and vocals that sound like they’ve been half-drowned in warm tape hiss. It’s not trying to grab you by the collar – it’s more of a nudge into a misty backstreet where you can’t tell if it’s sunrise or sunset. Daylight is where things sharpen a little, the drums snapping through the fog, while the self-titled ARENTUMINE track feels like the artist tearing pages out of their own diary, tossing them in the air, and letting the wind decide the order.
The middle stretch is where the album quietly flexes its best muscles. Crumble rides a woozy groove that wouldn’t be out of place on an early Glass Animals record, and Let Loose gives a welcome lift – still dreamy, but with enough pace to make you want to move. Alleyway is a highlight, a perfect collision of lo-fi grit and melodic polish, while Gray Sunset (Interlude) plays like the kind of instrumental you’d loop when you’re staring out of a rain-smeared bus window pretending you’re in an indie film.
Lostboy and Freefall are where the heartbreak really cracks through. There’s anger in the undercurrent, but it’s buried beneath shimmering musical layers and ghostly harmonies – frustration disguised as beauty. Only1 edges into more pop-friendly territory without losing the DIY intimacy, but Sideswipe (Interlude) feels like a throwaway – more filler than flow. And then there’s the closer, Wasting Time, which is everything the album’s been building towards: an aching, swelling, regret-stained anthem that wears its influences proudly but still sounds personal.
The strengths here are obvious – there’s a coherent mood, a tactile warmth in the mix, and a genuine sense that every note was obsessed over in the small hours of the night. It’s the kind of record that will absolutely bury itself into the hearts of fans who live for texture and atmosphere. But it does occasionally get lost in its own haze. A few tracks blur together so much you wonder if a sharper edit could have made the emotional hits land harder. The vocals, while perfectly fitting the style, sometimes sink too far into the mix, smothering the lyrical bite under all that dreamy wash.
Still, “Wasting Time” isn’t trying to be a chart-chasing pop record – crafted in a bedroom, and that honesty bleeds through. ARENTUMINE might not be reinventing the dream-pop wheel, but they’re spinning it with enough sincerity, melody, and unfiltered feeling to make you want to take the ride again.
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