The Daily Spin II

COIN | Dreamland

Welcome back to the Daily Spin. For the uninitiated, this is the series in which I review an album every day of 2025.

As was the case two years ago, my favorite song from each album can be found at the playlist linked here.

Album: Dreamland (2020)

Artist: COIN

Link:

One of the first acts I saw live was COIN - they did a show with Electric Guest at Pepperdine when I was out there - I think my junior year - so that would have been 2017, maybe spring 2018. I was immediately hooked by their sun-drenched surf rock, songs like Talk Too Much resonating at my core, songs like Malibu 1992 and I Don’t Wanna Dance addictive, situtationally perfect for a college kid in Los Angeles.

Once I left California, the band admittedly fell by the wayside a bit - I still enjoyed their music, but the sunny sound is a little less fun when you’re digging out your car in negative wind-chill temps.

That said, Spotify’s been rather insistent that I check out an assortment of tracks from 2020’s Dreamland - not the Glass Animals record by the same name released in 2020 as well. That’s not confusing at all, great job fellas.

Naming confusion aside, this album is fantastic and I feel rather silly for having missed it. I think that’s pretty reasonable given everything that was happening in 2020, but still. It’s five years later, and I’m only now realizing that this is one of the better synthpop records I’ve enjoyed in recent memory.

It doesn’t always hit - the lyrics on ‘Cemetery’ are pretty brutally jarring on a listen each time through, but those moments where the clarity strikes like on ‘Never Change’, ‘Let It All Out’, and ‘Babe Ruth’ are enough to sell me on things - not to mention the refined sound here, an evolution of their earlier days, further into the groove than the rock element, but keeping that California synthy sound.

It’s like a nice dinner at Malibu Seafood instead of crowding in at the Santa Monica Pier - you might have fun both ways, but there’s something to be said about finesse.

Rating: 9/10

Best Tracks: Crash My Car, Let It All Out (10:05), I Want It All

Worst Tracks: Valentine, Cemetery