London’s Automan bottle heartbreak on touching new single ‘Dreamland’.

Words: Matt Byron



Following on from their debut ‘Are You Happy Without Me?’, which entered the world in late May, London trio Automan are back with their second single ‘Dreamland’ – it’s a delicate effort drenched in honesty and inner turmoil, held on track by spiralling guitar parts that echo ‘I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose’-era Bombay Bicycle Club intimacy.

‘Dreamland’ is built from staring out of the window on long journeys and allowing your mind to sift through the emotional baggage that everyone carries. The lyrics seem to act as a stream of consciousness and upfront emotions bleed from the page as vocalist Fred opens up with the type of honesty often only associated with our own thoughts. Drums and a rumbling bass provide a steady rock for the vocal to tether itself and spark the connections we all have between our lived-in reality and what we thought it would be. 

Automan add, “the words to Dreamland were written a long time ago, on a day when I felt real loneliness in a moment on a train and scribbled them down whilst listening to This is the Day by The The. It’s, of sorts, a list of negative moments in time that I experienced.”