Album Review: Totally Unicorn - 'Dream Life'

29 July 2016 | 1:13 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Totes Uni go crazy bananas.

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“There are no metalcore/hardcore/whatever-the-hell-core bands that get really crazy anymore”. That’s a sentence that I’ve heard a lot bouncing around the scene lately. I’m not sure where it’s coming from, considering we’ve got bands like Totally Unicorn, AKA Totes Uni, chaotically throwing down like the only convention that ever mattered was going wild.

On their new full-length 'Dream Life', Totally Unicorn are experimental AF, vibing into a little bit of mathcore, a little bit of awkward emotionalism and a whole lot of raging riffage. For instance, the appropriately disastrous punk on ‘Slugtown’ constructs the atmosphere of an action-packed zombie apocalypse, while High Tension's Karina Utomo provides assistance on ‘Convict Brick’, that renders it both fast and furious.

Suffice to say, if you think that what you’re getting on first track, ‘Old Cute & Purified’, is all you’re in for, you’re sorely mistaken my friend.  This LP even defects to playing out post-punk on ‘Part-Time Model’, and that diversity of sound is everything that you ever wanted from a band like this. It’s a beautiful mess; a perfect storm. This record's apparent inconsistencies make it consistent with the ethos of a band that just doesn’t care about the rules, and we’d be downright worried if they were starting to now!

Totally Unicorn are our scene’s staple wild boys, and they continue that reputation musically with an album that goes everywhere that you don’t expect it to. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s serious, and sometimes it's unnervingly deep. The whole time, it’s a bloody good embodiment of the fact that you don’t have to be conventionally good at something to win. Get in on the party.

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1. Old Cute & Petrified

2. Welcome to Slugtown

3. Glow of the Wine Teeth

4. You Smell Like A Trophy

5. Customer Service Station

6. Borrow

7. Part Time Model

8. Space Congratulations

9. Convict Brick ft. Karina Utomo

10. Dream Life

11. April 29 Brothers