Cass McCombs – Dreams Come True Girl

Cass McCombs - Dreams Come True Girl

The inclusion of the word ‘girl’ is a tricky one. Musically, depending on its placement within a sentence, it can have the detrimental effect of dating a song quite dramatically.

Glancing at the title to Cass McCombs’ debut single, from his forthcoming album Catacombs, may work to instantaneously highlight how the song might sound. It does. Add to this the fact that when Cass McCombs croons in with, “You’re not my dream girl/You’re not my reality girl/You’re my dreams come true girl”, the plodding patter of the music weighs down the words in a way that renders them simply drab. The aforementioned line requires straining the “dreams-come-true-girl” over an already flaccid beat. It’s cringeworthy.

There’s not an awful else to go on. It’s got a ‘Stand By Me’ bass line; elsewhere it’s an oft two chord acoustic dirge with the occasional twang thrown in. Some might enjoy the monotony; alas the song is a scroll of nothingness. The inclusion of Karen Black does little to add any colour, but instead busies an already long track with a warbling drone akin to your drunk aunt at karaoke. The guitar solo toward the end shows promise, but elsewhere the music goes nowhere in highlighting the abilities of Mr McCombs. In fact, it does quite the opposite. One only hopes that his other output is not as colourless as ‘Dreams Come True Girl’.