“Surviving The Dream” is Fidlar’s Best Album

I’ve always been a big fan of Fidlar’s music. The band’s first album (2013) and Too (2015) are massive hits that greatly shaped the slacker scene. The band lost it with Beastie Boys like Almost Free (2019), but they’re back with their very best album to date: Surviving The Dream (2024). Now, this is quite a statement, so let me share four reasons to make my case:

1. Fidlar’s earlier albums lack some pop elements. They are raw and slacker, but they miss the tiny bit of fun that would have put them at the very top. Don’t get me wrong: these albums had something very special. The combo of slacker rock and depressed lyrics was super interesting. Yes, but Surviving The Dream finally brings pop elements to very powerful rock’n’roll songs, and that’s a massive win.

2. Surviving The Dream’s lyrics are less demonstrative than previous ones. Fidlar has stopped playing hothead, and they’ve also seemingly stopped the “never again” storytelling that Zac Carper was sometimes pushing in previous songs. He admits to using drugs, but he’s not proud of it. He admits having a hard time with some relationships, but he’s not pretending to be extremely concerned. He’s true to himself, or, at least, so it seems. In fact, I remember some of Fidlar’s lyrics for the very first time. The emotional resonance is very strong.

3. “Get Off My Wave” is an anthem. It reminds me of Wavves’ “King of the Beach,” the kind of song that captures an entire era of cool. To add icing on the cake, the song is perfectly produced. You can’t of course define an album quality looking at just one song, but anthems are different.

4. Surviving The Dream dares more with its arrangements than previous albums. I can easily listen to Surviving The Dream five times in a row, while I had a hard time doing so with previous LPs.

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