Drew Thomas has spent his recent releases pulling apart the expectations people are handed about masculinity, belonging and identity; and on 'American Dreams', he widens the target considerably.
The third single from his forthcoming EP turns its attention towards fame, money, beauty and the seductive promise that enough success can somehow complete you. Big houses, magazine covers, perfect bodies and packed-out shows become symbols of a life everyone is supposed to want, before he begins exposing the uglier demands hiding beneath them.
Musically, 'American Dreams' leans into his self-ordained grit-pop identity. Guitars provide the weight, but there's a clear pop instinct underneath the noise, giving it the kind of scale and immediacy that makes his early-2000s references feel like more than aesthetic nostalgia.
Whereas as previous singles 'Boys Aren’t Supposed to Cry' challenged the emotional rules surrounding masculinity and small-town life, and 'Soda Friends' threw itself into the temporary intimacy and chaos of New York nightlife. Here, the question becomes about how much of yourself can you sacrifice in pursuit of the person you think you are supposed to become?
'American Dreams' doesn't argue that wanting more is inherently empty. It just asks what happens when wanting more becomes an identity all of its own.
Big, guitar-heavy and appropriately dramatic, the single finds Drew Thomas pushing his sound outward while keeping the writing personal; discovering that sometimes the most dangerous dream is the one everybody tells you to chase.
