Kansas City-based Hembree have announced the February 4 release of their new album, It’s a Dream!. The LP  finds the quintet pushing their established sound—first glimpsed on 2019’s excellent debut House on Fire—to new, colorful zeniths. Possessing a funky looseness and hip-shaking approach that perfectly pairs with Isaac Flynn’s emotionally kaleidoscopic lyrics, It’s a Dream! is a record about getting freaky even while you’re freaking out. It’s a beyond relatable sentiment couched in music that burrows its way into your mind and stays there.

Today they share It’s a Dream!’s title track and Flynn notes, ““Believe it or not, I wrote this song before the pandemic, but I think we could all tell things were feeling strange! I was channeling the balance of feeling like everything was completely insane while going through the motions of everyday life.  Musically this one started as a beat and mandolin riff that our co-producer, e.hillman (of Foreign Fields), sent me in 2017. I just couldn’t find the right inspiration to write to it for nearly three years. It’s like the song was just lingering in my mind until I finally found the right words and melodies for it. It’s strange how songs can take thirty minutes or three years to write.

When we were recording it, we felt it needed more voices than just the band, so when Alex’s partner and our great friend, Devynn Carter, was visiting LA we had her join us on the song. That’s the real feel of this record. We wanted to be as collaborative and creative as possible. You know, try to have as much fun as possible while living in such strange times.” 

It’s a Dream! represents new levels of sonic immersion for Hembree as an artistic entity—practically a window into their creative minds, really, as they explore and incorporate new textures into their rapidly-expanding worldview. “This album is a fully-realized vision for the band,” Flynn explains before offering his own vision of the band’s future: “I want this record to lift people up, and for the music to be a positive experience in their own lives.”

Photo Courtesy: Jonny Marlow