Last Great Dreamers - 13th Floor Renegades

by Dave Goodwin

published: 31 / 5 / 2018

Last Great Dreamers - 13th Floor Renegades

Label: Ray Records
Format: CD

Fine third studio album from reformed 90’s band rock the Last Great Dreamers, who take their influences from glam and hard rock

Review

The Last Great Dreamers built a formidable live reputation in the mid-1990s with their take on 70's glam rock. Their 1994 debut album ‘Retrosexual’ resulted in an awards nomination from ‘Kerrang!’ for Best ‘New Band’ before tragedy and disillusionment leadto their break-up. In 2014 however, Marc Valentine, Slyder, Steve Fielding and Denley Slade staged a remarkable comeback releasing the critically acclaimed ‘Crash Landing in Teenage Heaven’, which was an album full of rarities. For much of 2015 they toured with the Runaways’ singer Cherie Currie, and in 2016 they opened for bands such as the Darkness, Terrorvision, Hey Hello and Tigertailz and released two singles ‘Dope School’, & 'Glitterball Apocalypse’ which both achieved no.1 status on the TBFM radio network charts. Later that year the Last Great Dreamers released ‘Transmissions from Oblivion’, their first album of brand new material since they reformed through their own independent label Ray Records. ‘13th Floor Renegades’ is the follow-up to ‘Transmissions from Oblivion’, which was an energetic collection of pop songs teeming with rock’n’roll attitude, emotion and glamour. This new release carries on in that vein with another eleven pop-infused indie rock tracks. 'No Sunshine' is a nod towards the brilliant Ramones. Citing influences including Mott the Hoople, the Clash, Hanoi Rocks, the Dogs D’Amour and T-Rex, one can hear the influence of all those bands in their sound but they still hang on their own exceptional identity. 'For Your Information' reminds me of a country-laden Arcade Fire track, but the majority of the album is meatier in its sound than that. 'Primitive Man’, for example, harks back to the last album and has something of Status Quo in its sound. The album was recorded between November 2017 and January 2018 at Henwood Studios in Oxford, and was produced by Pete Brown. If you enjoyed the last album you will no doubt like this even edgier new record, and want to hunt them down to witness their great live act too. A fabulous record!

Track Listing:-

1 New Situation
2 13th Floor Renegades
3 Speed of Light
4 No Sunshine
5 I Think I Like It
6 For Your Information
7 Primitive Man
8 Whose Side Are You On?
9 Miles Away
10 Broken Things
11 Going Home