Understand This is a Dream

Description

Understand This is a Dream is the full-length debut album by the American indie rock band The Juliana Theory, released on Tooth & Nail Records in 1999. (The band did release a five-track cassette independently in 1997, entitled This Is Not a Love Song … This Is a Demonstration.) The album was produced and recorded October 16-30, 1998 by Barry Poynter at his Poynter Studios in North Little Rock, Arkansas, assisted by Jason Magnusson. Mixed by Poynter, Magnusson, and Brett Detar.

The Juliana Theory features Brett Detar on vocals, Jeremiah Momper and Joshua Fielder on guitars,
Chad Allan on bass, and Neil Herbank on drums.

What the heavy metal world has lost, the pop world has gained. Brett Detar, former guitarist of the metal band Zao, has created The Juliana Theory, a band in the guitar heavy tradition of Weezer, Lit, and The Magnificent Three.

Although The Juliana Theory’s music is best described as post-punk pop, small dashes of emo abound. The songs tend to center around the smooth singing of Detar, with the chunky layered guitars providing the perfect backdrop for his voice. This is not a band dependent upon noise and volume, however, as strong ballads like «August in Bethany» and «For Evangeline» prove. Other songs, such as «This is Not a Love Song» and «Music Box Superhero», confirm that the band can indeed handle the noise.

Lyrically, The Juliana Theory’s songs have a general theme of longing – longing for spiritual peace, but mostly for past relationships. Songs like «Duane Joseph» verify the longing for past relationships:

You and me, why can’t it be the
way it was when pain was only
plastic guns, my closest friend I couldn’t
say you are a million miles away, I guess
I’ll hold my breath, there is no harm in hoping for change.

«For Evangeline» showcases the longing for spiritual peace:

In one night you made me your own
the deepest embraces creation
I lay there for days and you forgot
in one night you made me you own.

With production from Barry Poynter, The Juliana Theory provide some solid songs on this album, but there isn’t any ground-breaking material here. While the band does some things well, such as tight musicmanship and vocals, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been heard in some form from some other of the countless modern pop bands that fill the airways. Still, this is a solid effort, hopefully one upon which the band can build. [Joe Rockstroh, The Phantom Tollbooth, 4/22/99]

> iTunes (https://music.apple.com/us/album/understand-this-is-a-dream/724210050)

CD tracklist:

01. This Is Not A Love Song
02. Duane Joseph
03. August In Bethany
04. Music Box Superhero
05. Seven Forty Seven
06. The Closest Thing
07. Show Me The Money
08. For Evangeline
09. P.S. We’ll Call You When We Get There
10. Constellation

Note: Remastered and re-issued on 12-inch vinyl LP in 2010 by Academy Fight Song housed in a gatefold sleeve. The vinyl edition features one bonus track, “Farewell My Friend”, a previously unreleased track from the original recording session.

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A full-page advertisement for various new releases on Tooth & Nail Records, including The Juliana Theory’s Understand This is a Dream, was featured in the July 1999 issue of CCM Magazine.

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