Various Small Flames on Kramies ‘Hollywood Signs’ – “A record as committed to world-building and atmosphere as ever, but also loaded with personal details too. What feels like the culmination of a career to date. So we wrote of the self-titled album by US songwriter Kramies released via Hidden Shoal back in 2022, applauding the romantic and haunting sound and they way it used a fantastical, folkloric sensibility to explore personal truths. “Life in all its surreal wonder and visceral reality,” as we continued. “Kramies, told as truthfully as possible, whatever form that truth takes.”
The release won Kramies acclaim from a variety of places, not least Billboard who christened him ‘The Dreampop Troubadour’, but now he’s about to return with a brand new full-length and is already stepping away from the persona. The aptly titled Goodbye Dreampop Troubadour sees Kramies push his work in a new direction. Made in collaboration with Grammy-winning producer Mario McNulty (David Bowie), the new album takes the mythic beauty of its predecessor and pushes it in a newly nostalgic direction, full of dreamlike longing and evening colours. But as lead single ‘Hollywood Signs’ demonstrates, this hushed, soothing style possesses an underside. Something strange and quietly unsettling, full of the mysterious allure which Kramies has always offered. The lyrics might tell a realist (if melodramatic) tale of two people, lovers or former lovers, but that’s only half of the story. In the world of Kramies, nothing is ever quite as it seems.”
