Understand This Is A Dream? 'Understand This Is A Dream' album

Backwards and forwards as you watch and feel the edge of the blade’s just shy of your neck and back up, only to feel the pendulum come running back quicker, harder, more accurate the next time.

With more speed once again your eyes view the final swing. Only to wake up and realize it may have all just been a dream.

As I begin this review, I’m truly frightened by the very thought of how many times I’ve been asked to actually define the genre of ‘Emo”. In the immortal words of one of Emo’s true pirate innovators, Brandon Boyd (Incubus), “If I had a dime every time, I’d be rich by noon today”. Ah yes, that is but a dream, and so is The Juliana Theory’s 1999 debut effort off of Tooth and Nail Records, “Understand This Is But a Dream”. As excited as I am to getting into the swirling and long argued definition of Emo, I feel its necessary to tell J.T.’s (Juliana Theory’s) story, for they created THE EMO ALBUM EXTRADONAIRE. Some might even consider “Understand This is But a Dream” to be the beginning of Emo itself.

It was just another day at the mom and mop CD store I was managing at the time (Sound Source). Just recently I had befriended the local Christian rock venue God’s Place International; you wouldn’t believe the talent the Christian market had been hiding. Previous to this relationship, I had started up a distribution and marketing crossfire with Seattle, Washington based Tooth and Nail Records. A few weeks into my campaigning with the customers, I received my first care package from the company. In this care package was a plethora of different promo’s, t-shirts, gadgets, gizmos, and stickers. It wasn’t until I found the blue contemporary looking JT (Juliana Theory) cover with its press release that the unique story of this indie band started to unfold.

Hailing from a small town in Pennsylvania, Brett Detar (lead vocals) was formerly known throughout the industry for his guitar work with Zao, a highly respected Christian Hardcore/Metal act. After his departure from Zao, he formed his own group back home. Over the first few months, the material piled up, as did the storyline. Still without a name, Brett heard of this group of scientists in the radius of his area known only as the Juliana Group. The Juliana Group was in search of their proof for a hypothesis. As a result of their studies, they found the only way to prove their hypothesis was through the waves of music. The way it was explained to me? It’s your job as the listener, and reviewer of this record to take this record home and come up with the all-important answer to what is “The Juliana Theory”.

Starting slow, trickling back and forth are the introductive chords readying you for these four cheeses of punk rock. Then suddenly the lead vocals seep through, and a bouncy, up-tempo, one chord method pulls your brain sideways. Leave room for the chorus 'cause “This is not a love song”. This track bolsters the sound of the entire album, ending in a fashion most of us can sing along to during its first listening. “Doot Doo Doo Doo, Doot Doo Doo Doot Doo Doo.” Track two is for me, the beginning of Emo, as I know it. While many artists before these guys had performed it, and subconsciously I was feeling it, when this album crossed my fingertips for the first time I knew I was experiencing something different. Melodies meshing emotions, in swirls that seemed to be bending time back and forth.

You see nowadays Emo is about a depressed 14 year old who is angry because his or her parents want to be closer with them (perhaps that’s an unfair stereotype, please strike that from the record). The music has taken on a life of its own. Swimming out past the dock life of music into a lifestyle of co-eds wearing bad eye shadow and self-empathy. The original Emo scheme is a bit more clear with the listening pleasure of track two, “Duane Joseph”. Although lyrically it's a simple boyhood story of fun and growing up, musically the inclination of emotions is running wild on musical instruments. Slowly it starts. “Tell your Mom you need a day off, So we can play out in the rain, We'll catch a ride to the mall, Go down to the arcade, Cause that's where all the cool kids play.” That’s when suddenly an unexpected explosion takes over the strings and drumsticks. Blend in the chorus, and play it upwardly towards the bridge only to stutter stop one more time for another verse. Is the picture sinking in just yet?

Track three “August in Bethany” is a love ballad with all the trimmings of emotional instrumental build up. Slowly the lyrics blend in with the saddening guitar intro. As the song progresses, the vocal contributions show pains taken experience. “Don’t go, you said you wouldn’t, don’t go, you said you couldn’t.” Just as you’re ready to skip forward to the next track and label this as a dramatic ballad, these boys switch gears, and the lungs of Brett take focus. Screaming repeatedly, “DON’T GO! YOU SAY AS I WALK OUT! YOUR DOOR.” Don’t fear for the character involved, this song ends in somber serenity.

Track four is my consideration for the goofy intro allowance. For good reason, as this becomes an acceptable brain fart as the goofy, simple-minded intro turns into a confident melody-driven synchronization from there on in. “This life in my box lets you turn the key when you want to hear, A melody but I can never be the apple of your eye, the story of your life it's what's inside, Why I go through stages.” The instrument and vocal combination separate and combine numerous times on this track, only to come back together for the finale of the song, ending in the most distinct of chords on this album.
Track five, “Seven Forty Seven,” once again like its created cousins, won't win any technical awards, but has an amazing atmospheric "get up and bounce" stutter stop feel. I suppose it’s me who should finally hint out to all the men the new Barry White like power song of our often moving generation is track six, “The Closet Thing”. This serious piece of songwriting will surely get any man, short of the sensitivity of a male wrestler in good with his spouse or girlfriend. “You're the dream that hasn't ended, and I'm still anxious for rest. Your words they seem to hang above my head. You're the bud before the flower, Unfurls into full bloom. Captivating beauty, but it maybe all too soon. You're the song that writes a story, but leaves a lot to read. The closest thing to perfect, but the farthest thing from me.”

Track seven, “Show me the money,” easily defines the beginning of easy, yet whiny repetitive guitar-strumming Emo/Rock hell. Like the chorus of “Pray” without the verse from M.C. Hammer (should I drop the M.C? naaaaa). “I thought about what you said, and it’s not your maahneee (*Money*)!” These would be all the words you’ll need to prepare for such song writing. Thankfully, moving on and realizing the one blemish. “Show me the money” is merely that, a blemish. As “For Evangeline” is a beautiful compromise between the balance of simple chord progressions, and the vocals complimenting those tricks. Now as much I would love to keep praising, I must reiterate a serious disliking at this point for the repetitive nature of the lyrics. Funny how I never noticed it before, regardless, come back to me complaining when you realize the range of this pinched nose wine. “In One Night you gave me away to the angels.” Floating in and out, within the walls of high and low, like a child simply playing with the volume of his or her voice simply to grab the attention of its on-looking kindergarten teacher. “Now I am just a silhouette….”

“P.S. we’ll call you when we get there” being the song title to track nine is the biggest clue to the mystery of the hypothesis, and that’s my hypothesis. Though strong and terrifically poppy, it's only a prelude to the fireworks finale like track ten, aptly titled “Constellation”, which may leave you feeling like you’re in outer space once the CD comes to a halt. Up, down, left to right, and all around. This is etiquette, the convincing evidence and proof when asked that bothering, yet persistent question, “What is Emo anyways?”

Tiny taps, supported by finger movements involving metal strings, and a guitar pick strumming away like a closed matchbook at the pickups of a Mexican Stradivarius. Echoed feminine lyrics are flowing through my skull by a man of Robert Smith-like (the Cure) vocal stature. Something towards the effect of… “Sleep seems a dream away, and a year too late. The words that can’t be spoken, streamed off your face…” And so the emotion explodes, like the molecules of one human's flesh attacked by the fate of 400-mph winds. “AND I WANNA BE SELFISH! I WANNA BE SELFISH! I WANNA BE SELFISH. YOU’RE MY EVERYTHING!!!! …PLEASE DON’T FORGET MY NAME….”

Imagine a pendulum an 800-pound pendulum swaying back and forth in a category 4 hurricane. You dodge the pendulum as it persistently keeps coming for you. Backwards and forwards as you watch and feel the edge of the blade’s just shy of your neck and back up, only to feel the pendulum come running back quicker, harder, more accurate the next time. With more speed once again your eyes view the final swing. Only to wake up and realize it may have all just been a dream.

Just what is the lobbying of musical experience, rhythm, and brain waves? What is it that makes you’re mind familiarize itself with one song or another? What is it that allows your head to become emotionally attached loyal, and understanding of each and every hand, or body movement in succession with a musical instrument? Could it be you’re emotions? Painfully beautiful and understanding, secretions through the speakers of living, breathing, hurting, loving, learning, trusting, and feeling EMOtion.

Still to this day I do not know the basis of their hypothesis. But as I begin this review I’m simply frightened by the very thought of how many times I’ve been asked this very question.

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Understand This Is A Dream? - Understand This Is A Dream