Pixey – Dreams, Pains & Paper Planes Review

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Marking another note for a strong year of British music, Pixey’s so-called “mini-LP” has all the depth of an album and all the qualities of a great one. Dreams, Pains & Paper Planes offers up eight delightful tracks charting another resoundingly solid release for the Liverpudlian artist. Dreamy yet focused, well-mixed production streamlines Pixey’s artistic qualities here on an album that relies just as much on incredibly dense and interesting track layering as it does on the informed lyrical offerings. Defiant tracks that tread water with those usual and friendly notes are interspersed with smart technical additions that give new life to old genre stylings.

Slight similarities between the beat and instrumentals of Recycled Paper Planes and I’m So High do not show repetition but confidence in a beat that works for exceptional lyrical plays. Come Around (Sunny Day) is a jolly follow-up to Recycled Paper Planes that works well with its juxtaposed blend of bop-worthy musicality and darker lyrics. Pixey forms a smart release here not just from a musical perspective but from the dedication to pace and flow of album work. These tracks can be extracted, take I’m Just High as a clear example of that, but wedged between Come Around (Sunny Day) and Kids! shows a narrative form that some artists have chased for decades. Brilliant and unique at the best of times, Dreams, Pains & Paper Planes is articulate and thoroughly gifted piece.

Whether that realisation clicks with the upbeat blur of I’m Just High or the incredible blend of Melody (From You to Me) is beside the point. At some stage, it’ll click. It works so well. Picking out lyrics and serving them up in quote form doesn’t do the quality of Pixey’s writing justice. Focused, refined and intense, with a usual scattering of indie pop-variety tracks. Kids! sounds as close as it gets to a stadium-ready track, with brief acoustic ploy right in the middle of a repeated, eponymous chorus. So, Just Smile has that quality too – less than Kids! but with more of a lyrical flair than some of the other tracks on the album.

For art is now living and dying off of those ten-second clips of music put to the back of whatever viral trend is out this week, and it is a shame. Pixey’s work here, like that of the viral nature of Sam Fender last year, has a real character and charm to it that is unlike anything the genre can currently offer. Be it colloquial turns and influences or impressive layering of opening track Recycled Paper Planes, there is something truly unique about this mini-album. Energetic, a bit Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches at times, and all of it comes together with such vibrancy. Experimental bits, excellent pieces, Pixey crafts a mini-album that feels far bigger than it is being pushed as. Dreams, Pains & Paper Planes is a quality, quality album and marks another high point for not just Merseyside charms but the resurgence of truly unique independent British music.