It feels like we’ve been waiting for years to return to the D:Ream world, but the wait is over as one of the biggest dance bands of the 90s return with a killer album and a hot new single with a slick sing-along video to go with it.
Yes, Pete Cunnah and DJ/backing vocalist/Head of Comedy and Magic Al Mackenzie are back together after an acrimonious split (it’s a long story: suffice to say they reconnected in a children’s playground and took it from there… to here) and with an album that shows that sometimes going away is the best thing you can do.
‘We want to make people feel good,’ reckons Pete, which is exactly what we were hoping. And that’s where the break-out single ‘Meet Me At Midnight’ comes in, kicking off the campaign to ‘get the positivity back’, the same sort of positivity they were masters of on tracks such as ‘U R The Best Thing’ and, of course, ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, the track that pretty much changed the world.
The split came about because, in Pete’s words, they couldn’t agree on what direction the band was going. ‘My dream was to get to the top of the charts,’ he says. And that dream came true. But going it alone, and finding it lonely out there, he also reckons ‘we are better than the sum of our parts’.
Even a quick listen of ‘Meet Me At Midnight’ will bear that out. Peter’s vocals are still D:Ream-like, even if there’s a slightly more mature, maybe even Elton John-esque tone to things while Al’s beats are just as compelling – inspiring even – as they were back in the glory days. We doff our caps to this very welcome D:Ream comeback.
