Hembree

No need to pinch yourself: Hembree’s It’s a Dream! is real. The Kansas City-based indie rockers’ second album is set for release on February 4^th and finds the quintet pushing their established sound—first glimpsed on 2019’s excellent debut House on Fire—to new, colorful zeniths. Possessing a funky looseness and hip-shaking approach that perfectly pairs with Isaac Flynn’s emotionally kaleidoscopic lyrics, It’s a Dream! is a record about getting freaky even while you’re freaking out. It’s a beyond relatable sentiment couched in music that burrows its way into your mind and stays there.

Since Hembree released their first album House on Fire back in 2019, they hit the road and came off a stretch of touring ready to channel that energy into their next artistic statement. Before the pandemic, work on what would become It’s a Dream! Was halfway done—and when the world shut down, it gave the band an opportunity to look inwards and refine their own sonic approaches while embracing a newfound maturity. Once the band was able to get together safely again, the quintet holed up in Burbank while enlisting co-producer e.hillman and engineers Chris Kaysch and Jasmine Chen to complete work on It’s a Dream! Following the release of vibrant first single Reach Out, funked-up follow-up Operators and driving album title-track, new single Close to Me is out today.

"Close to Me is a song that I had written a few years ago that just kept lingering in my mind. After finishing all the demos for what became, “It’s a Dream!”, I felt like the record needed a lift and a bit more optimism, so the band and I opened this song up again. It’s a love song through and through with a narrative based in companionship. It’s about devotion to whoever is down to pull you out of the dark, and get you through the strange times and all of life’s struggles — that could be a partner, friend or even your dog. This one’s for the ride or dies” Isaac Flynn, Hembree

Ironically, It’s a Dream! represents new levels of sonic immersion for Hembree as an artistic entity—practically a window into their creative minds, really, as they explore and incorporate new textures into their rapidly-expanding worldview. “This album is a fully-realized vision for the band,” Flynn explains before offering his own vision of the band’s future: “I want this record to lift people up, and for the music to be a positive experience in their own lives.”