A rip-roaring combination of piercing guitar riffs are wonderfully melodic vocals, this track from Shad has just about everything that comes to mind when you imagine a new indie track from Manchester.
Having already made their mark locally on the live scene, and with a headline gig at the deaf institute coming up, Illusive Dreams really sees them make their first real wider impression, and with good reason. It’s a track that is impossible to ignore. Everything about it from start to finish has seemingly had every last iota of energy pumped into it, and the result is a track which gets right in your face, and forces you to take notice.
Illusive Dreams is centred around, errm, illusive dreams. Lead singer Luke Owens has described how “The best lyrics come to you in your dreams”, but to imagine this rollercoaster of a track has formed as he sleeps is pretty astonishing.
The real driving force that makes the song such memorable is the undeniable intensity they manage to into it. Very much following on from what they have been lauded for bringing to live performances, they showcase real relentlessness in their music, a real raw energy that just feels so natural in their sound. If anything, it is even more impressive that they have managed to get this across in the same way through the speakers of a laptop as they do atop a stage in front of a packed crowd.
They are already moving up the pecking order through the venues of Manchester, and I see no way that that rise will not continue. These are a band to get on early, and this is the track to start with.