Eva X - I Dream Of A Reality
Review by Karl Magi
Overall Album Impressions
Eva X’s I Dream of a Reality is a lacerating, powerful album that explores dark and sometimes challenging emotions and ideas, leavened by hope and inspiration. Eva X’s unique, wide-ranging voice combines with strong lyrics and a hard-edged sonic palette to deliver a musical gut punch that makes an intense impression on me each time I listen to it.
One of the most compelling aspects of I Dream Of A Reality is Eva X’s voice. She can gently seduce with it but it can also cut like a razor. Whether she is delicately breathing the vocals or crying out in defiance, her vocal abilities capture all of the emotion that radiates from the words she has written.
Lyrically speaking, I Dream Of A Reality delivers for me. There’s a mixture of social commentary, deep emotional expression and moments of engaging inspiration. The words are chosen carefully and fall with strong impact. I enjoy the directness of Eva X’s writing along with her ability to lay her emotions bare.
The relentless aggression of the album’s music only adds to the dramatic energy that fills the vocals and lyrics. There are jagged synth edges, void-deep bass and battering percussion that punch each song home. I also appreciate the way in which gentler elements in the music create a strong contrast that only makes the album work more effectively.
My Favourite Tracks Analyzed
“Whipping Girl” commences as raised, rebounding synth echoes out, rising and falling in volume. Pounding drums drive with forceful motion above a flowing synth background. Eva X's voice is emotive and shadowed, carrying a sharp-edged vocal melody above throbbing drums and angular bass.
Eva X's voice snarls in a way that effectively delivers strong vocals and defiant lyrics. A dark drum and bass surge seethes along with creaking, gritty synth before Eva X's voice echoes again. Cutting notes slash and the drumbeat snaps as massive synth surges. Rich, ringing notes roam and slowly whirling, glowing arpeggios spin above hollow drums. The song ends on the pumping beat and Eva X's powerful voice.
This song examines an escape from society’s need to objectify women and diminish their sense of being. The narrator begins by saying “we’re in the dark with hollow hearts.” She asks the song’s subject if they look into the crowd when she’s not around. She tells the other person that they have it all as she is like their “living doll” and she gives them “pictures for your trophy wall, pussy on a pedestal.”
Now the storyteller asks the other person if they really see her. She points out that “dead girls still dream” and adds that the song subject’s love isn’t ever what it seems to be. When she gets free she won’t be the other person’s “whipping girl.” Her comment is that love is not the drug and “the pain’s just blood” so she’s reached the end and “your ride is done.”
Our narrator says she is the song subject’s excuse for being used and asks them how they can keep their head clear “with that poison in your ear.” She points out that the other person is “throwing blame” and says that her “inconvenient thoughts” are in their way in terms of “doing who you want.”
Again she asks if the other person can see her because “your love is never really what it seems when I'm free.” As the song ends, she asks finally if the other person sees her “breaking and mean.”
Heaving, crackling bass supports elevated chimes shining in a tenuous melody as “Body Talk” begins. Massive drums pulsate and Eva X's voice is touching and resonant as it carries pained emotion.
Ethereal choral synth glides while the colossal drums burst and a guitar cries out with gritty energy. Eva X's sensuous voice calls out before the song slips into a segment in which the drums drop out and glimmering synth stars flare. The muffled drumbeat grows into full strength again.
Now the vocals are caressing while shining synth tendrils unfurl, drums tick lightly and then heave again. The guitar cuts through in gruff lines and drums break as distant voices shift. Eva X's voice bursts in staccato lines as the thudding kick drum smashes and the vocals bring the song to an end along with fluttering digital sounds.
This song explores an emergence from inside a self-imposed exile as the narrator speaks of how she locks her feelings inside alongside the “scars hiding under my skin.” She says that the song’s subject with a single touch can “pull me open” and make her feel something new. She adds that “I fall for you.”
Now the narrator speaks of how the other person will “touch me, hold me, see me, feel me” as she asks them to let their body talk to her. She repeats her desire to be touched, held, seen and felt but also adds “heal me” to the list.
When they kiss, the other person’s lips “light me up inside like I knew you my past life.” Their eyes on her drawn her into the light. She asks the other person to kiss her awake because she doesn’t want to wait any more. As their “bodies intertwine, we dance out in the night.” This is a new love and she wants to give it a try. The song ends as she says “hold me, take me high.”
“MACHINE” opens with unevenly throbbing drums and surging, blunt synth that jams forward. Eva X's voice flows with darkness as angry, lacerating synths stutter. Clotted, surging synth batters again as Eva X's shadowy voice moves.
Medium-high, gleaming synth writhes above cutting drums and thick synth. I enjoy the moment of calm injected by a fragile synth intertwining before huge drums shatter again. Triumphant synth howls out and Eva X's vocals echo above distorted, surprisingly gentle notes. Colossal drums and weighty bass collide and pulse on to a conclusion.
This song examines the dangers of a broad societal drive for physical perfection. The storyteller speaks of how she wants skin that never makes her “feel inadequate” along with a body that doesn’t age and the ability to "walk into a room and have all eyes on me.” Ultimately she wants “the beauty…the symmetry.”
There is a dark craving to take out a knife and “cut a line to fix a part of me” and undergo a transformation that is “so close I could touch.” She can hear a voice from outside and within whisper as she speaks of deconstructing herself to “turn into a dream.” Our narrator talks about taking a needle to herself to make a “better me.”
Now she wants someone to “connect, remake, erase (and) correct) her as she wonders if “when I’m a beautiful machine” the other person will “love, love me.” The storyteller says that she wants to be “a very friendly sort of dangerous” that keeps people guess if she is with them or not. She speaks of hiding “a razor in your pretty little fantasy” that will kill off her humanity.
Ultimately she wants to keep her feelings locked away before she will “delete them in the deep” to kill the woman inside her and “make a better me.”
Scraping metal sounds rattle along with old school modem sounds and moaning to start “Your Kind.” Eva X's voice is sensual and smooth as the heavy drumbeat pounds. A broad distortion fills the vocals and the drums and bass have a swaying, sinuous motion.
Eva X effectively imbues her voice with lush expression as drums batter and cymbals hiss. Raised, twisting synth snakes through the music as tapping percussion moves. A distorted synth howls out in a lacerating melody, taut and cascading. Eva X's vocals are distorted before they move into silence.
Our storyteller enticingly asks the song’s subject if they want to play a game. She promises to keep them entertained as she loves to “hear you say more, more, more.” She is always available and as long as the other person keeps the money coming, she’ll make their day. The narrator will be their “fantasy, blow your mind” as both their dream and their lie.
Now the storyteller tells the song’s subject that “I wanna be your kind.” She tells them that she’ll be there for them and they can call her, even late at night. She makes it clear that “I'll never love you but I'll blow your mind.” She asks them if they want a picture of her “in and out of lingerie” because she wants them to keep coming back.
Keeping the song subject gazing at her is something she likes along with keeping the money flowing to her. She knows the other person wonders “if it's worth your dime” but reminds them that “I'll never love you but I'll blow your mind. I’ll be your kind.”
“Broken Wings” opens as harsh, high piano notes move in uneven, aching patterns. Eva X's voice is delicate, airy and full of feeling as angular bass pulsates with crushing weight. Vocals slip and slide while the piano trickles through. Shifting bass shadows move while string-like sounds resonate.
Eva X emotes strongly as digital-sounding, string-like arpeggios shiver through the music. The piano yearns and hurts in a way that deepens the emotion in the vocals. Pain and need fill Eva X's voice as pounding drums and heavily oscillating bass throb
Churning, twirling strings spin and vocals tremble as the song unfolds. Rounded, creaking synths rise into the track as drums break while wobbling bass vibrates. Again hectic arpeggios whirl madly and the whole track churns to an end.
The storyteller speaks of feeling blinded and encircled by outside forces as she says that “I don’t have much else to surrender.” She can feel pressure building in her head as she asks,“What was it that someone gentle said?” She recalls that it was the fact that “ambition will never be your friend.
Our narrator says the perfect life she is leading is killing her and she realizes that “I let you down, I’m fading out. Set me free.” Voices whisper to her as they say “hush, fall down” and ask to be let free. She says that she’ll never “feel a thing” as she fades into obscurity as a “saint with broken wings.”
Now the narrator shuts her eyes and allows everything to wash away. She concludes by saying that, as she is “collapsing, crashing down from grace” she finds the sorrow on her face hard to bear.
Slowly trembling synth gently moves into open space along with Eva X's caressing, fragile vocals to begin “Hear The Silence.” The vocal melody is tentative as a jagged synth briefly slices through. Gigantic drums throb along with thick bass, slashed by a gruff synth blade.
The vocals grow in strength and feeling as crackling synth roars. Piano flits in rapidly dancing arpeggios over hard-edged drums that burst more broadly now as the arpeggio keeps unfurling.
Eva X's voice is wonderfully distinctive and resonant while massive drums crash below in a tide of wild energy. Far off, distorted piano cascades unevenly into open space. The vocals rise with poise, power and depth as a growling synth tides smashes before silence falls.
“Breathe in, breathe out” is how our storyteller starts the song as she speaks of the “dead quiet, once so loud” as her world tumbles down and she breathes in. She goes on to talk about how “no one is looking right now” so she can be herself alone.
Now the narrator feels “the sun on my skin” and the stillness for which she fought. She says that her heart is still beating inside of her and “this is where I begin.” Again she inhales and exhales as “my world it slowly falls down” and the tears she cries become “my crown” as she inhales again.
“Tear Down These Walls” kicks off as slightly distorted, radiant synth moves in staccato bursts above gleaming synth. Roaring guitar, attacking drums and snarling bass merge into a crushing wall. Eva X's voice is full of emotion and defiance, carrying the soaring vocal melody.
Luminous arpeggios slowly undulate as heavy drums shatter and seething bass rumbles. The chugging guitar drives along with battering drums. I am drawn to the ferocity in Eva X's voice as the raging guitar surges and the guttural bass charges.
The vocals soar upward above rippling arpeggios and heavily pounding drums while a fragile flute drifts. Eva X's vocals climb and fly out over the massive strength underneath them. The song ends on the inspiring chorus as it flies out over the seething below it.
This song is a message of defiance and resurgence. The storyteller begins by saying that when she was a girl she saw “infinity, future flying high” until the embodied forces of oppression tried to “hide me in your shadow” and force her to choose “body or my mind.”
Our narrator talks about how there’s a “label with my name” imposed by these outside forces that pushes her to either be “a beauty or a thinking thing” like a marionette on their strings until she cuts them.
Now she calls for tearing down “these walls brick by brick” as she raises her flag “bit by bit.” She says that there’s a fire burning and hopes that it will “slowly light the way.” Again she talks about tearing the walls down and this time says that “I am the fire and I know I’ll find my way.”
The storyteller is done with “living as your target” and having to push off groping hands and “take your demands.” She is going to rewrite the old rules, rip apart the oppressor’s logic as she starts “blowing up the scene, breaking the machine."
High synth flutters and unbelievably low bass shudders to open “Machine (Adoration Destroyed Remix).” Eva X's vocals move above snapping drums while the bass vibrates through my whole body. Tremendously heavy guitar moves with pleasingly intimidating weight below Eva X's vocals.
Rattling percussion and crushing bass add to the remix’s darkness while the guitar tears at the listener’s ears in raging notes. The track floats into a lighter section before the ferocious low end rips forth. Eva X's fragmented voice moves out above dancing, smooth synth notes while the bass and heavy drumbeat hit again. Colossal guitar growls above Stygian bass and silence falls.
“Control (SPANKTHENUN Remix)” comes into life as blaring, brassy synth grits out along with a rushing medium-low synth oscillation and gigantic bass. The drums punch with violent weight and Eva X's vocals are twisted but full of superb expression.
Blunt drums and directly hitting bass stutter as Eva X's vocals are given added strength and emphasis by their distortion. Hammering drums and huge bass strike with tremendous force.
A high, ringing sound trembles out above the drum and bass brutality that breaks below. After a digital ripple, the song’s low end attacks and Eva X's voice chants out above it while a steady, elevated sound flickers. The track ends on guttural weight and snarling power.
Conclusion
I Dream Of A Reality combines emotional vulnerability, anger and darkness with Eva X’s distinctive voice and well-crafted lyrics. I enjoy the way in which her music engages me and keeps me coming back to listen again.
