“Underwater,” out September 18th, gives an early look at Waterloo, Ontario band Awake & Dreaming‘s debut album “Inevitable,” due October 16th. The band describes the song as the record’s 2 a.m. self-talk session, built around the image of a whale floating too deep to be found, massive and alone, calling out in a frequency nobody else can hear. It’s a fitting entry point into a record the band says works through the same core tensions from different angles throughout: connection against isolation, technology embraced or resisted, love tangled up with loss.
The textures here are genuinely ingenious, and they work perfectly with the ethereal feeling of being underwater as a metaphor for being lost and alone, and slowly coming to terms with the idea that it’s okay to take up space anyway. This is a heavy song, and the arrangement and sound design support that narrative throughout rather than just decorating it- the kind of production choices that make the metaphor land rather than just illustrate it on the surface. It fits the band’s stated sound well, built on the contrast between delicate, close-up quiet and walls of distorted guitar, where the loud moments only arrive once they’ve been earned.
Formed during the pandemic when Sasha and Stefan started writing together before Ryan and later Phil rounded out the lineup, Awake & Dreaming have built real momentum without a label behind them, including a sold-out support slot for Carole Pope at Toronto’s historic El Mocambo and a catalogue that’s already crossed a quarter million streams off the strength of 2024’s “Old Ghosts” alone. With “Inevitable” arriving on a limited signed vinyl pressing and an accompanying tour through Ontario and Quebec this fall, “Underwater” makes a strong case that the album is going to be worth the wait.
