When you think about what “dream music” might sound like, your first thought probably won’t be of any power-pop ballads, but don’t let that deter you from checking out “Alicya,” the latest single from Halifax’s Hello Delaware.
The band’s lyricist and frontwoman Dana Beeler says, “I have a lot of dreams. Most of them not great, most of them confusing, and most of them I forget almost instantly. But this one stuck with me. A dream about someone I didn’t know, named ‘Alicya.’”
Whoever “Alicya” is, the uneasy emotions of Beeler’s dream have worked their way into the track itself, proving to be eerily unsettling, however catchy it might be.
With punchy electric guitars and Beeler’s warm, yet powerful vocal timbre, Alicya certainly has a lot to offer in terms of a power-pop ballad. On top of all that too—it’s loud, angsty, and fun as hell. “Alicya” is not a track about the pleasant dream you so desperately wish you could lull yourself back into–it’s about the dream that startles you awake in the middle of the night, the dream that keeps you awake until the morning, the dream that leaves you with more questions than answers.
The track opens with the lyrics:
“Staring at my ceiling, it’s 5 A.M.,
I awoke from a dream,
where you were still with me”
On the process of writing the song, Beeler says, “I did, quite literally, write the majority of the lyrics for this song at 5 am, directly after I woke up from my dream.”
With the song recorded and produced by John Mullane (In-Flight Safety), Beeler also notes that “this was one of the first songs the band had full say in how it sounded and made it the angsty, power ballad that it is.”
While there aren’t a ton of details out just yet–”Alicya” has been released as part of the group’s forthcoming record, Now Now, which itself has yet to receive a release date. If anything can be gleaned from the single, however, this is a record to look forward to.