There haven’t been many more dependable acts making indie rock over the past decade than Subsonic Eye, a band I’ve really come to love over the past few years. The last album from the Singaporean band, All Around You, was one of my favorite albums of 2023. They’ve really mastered pairing both compelling songwriting with some throwback pop-rock production and a bit of shoegaze mixed in as well. Their latest album, Singapore Dreaming, continues to lock in their strengths and show how much they can accomplish in such a short amount of runtime.
The strength in Subsonic Eye’s music has always been in the writing. They manage to accomplish so much in three minutes or less, and Singapore Dreaming has tracks as captivating as anything they’ve ever made. The quick-moving and rolling guitars immediately pull you into the themes of cyber brain rot on “My iPhone Screen” and the rapid deceleration towards the end of the track is so well done it can give you chills. “Aku Cemas” is one of the first tracks I’ve heard that goes in on the unique hell that is modern job hunting, and it does it so well while still managing to sound effortlessly catchy. There’s some more endlessly endearing writing about overwork on “Overgrown”, and it’s one of the smoothest tracks on the Singapore Dreaming.
I’m not sure that I’ve heard the band make a bad song, and the moments they try out different approaches on Singapore Dreaming, they still get results. “Situations” is a rare moment for Subsonic Eye to split vocal responsibility instead of having Nur Wahidah’s incredible solo performances, and the harmonizations sound gorgeous. You briefly get a bit more of shared vocals on “Brace”, but it’s much quicker and has much less of an impact on the song. The closer “Blue Mountains” is a real high note, and the longest track on the album by quite a good bit. Closing the album by slowing down and letting both the vocals and instrumentals essentially fade to black is a wonderful touch.
They’ve never exactly been Swans in terms of track or album length, but Singapore Dreaming is another pretty short album from Subsonic Eye. Despite the runtime and number of songs being almost the exact same as All Around You, both are ten tracks and thirty minutes – it actually feels a bit shorter. Tracks six and seven being as short as they are is definitely a big reason why. You finish both of them in a blink, and all of a sudden the album is almost over.
“Being Protective”, track seven, has one of the best instrumentals of the album, and I’d have liked to have gotten more time with them; even just 20 seconds would have made a huge difference for some tracks, especially this one. The guitars on the chorus sound excellent, and the bass is wonderful. There’s more incredible guitar work on “Why Am I Here”, primarily towards the back end of the track as the playing really starts to rumble and pick up pace. The instumentals are all top tier throughout; there’s no miss here.
Subsonic Eye’s brevity has been one of their biggest strengths, but this time around I do think it slightly undermines Singapore Dreaming. Some of the shorter tracks, like “Being Protective”, have some of the best sounds of the album, and while they never feel like a wasted opportunity, it does at times feel like more could have been done. It’s still one of the better albums to come out this year. The highs are still incredibly high, and the few ‘low’ (they aren’t very low) moments are more a result of the high standard the band has set for themselves. When Singapore Dream gets the perfect amount of breathing room, Subsonic Eye still delivers the incredible sound that they’ve been doing for the past decade.
