ALBUM REVIEW: Professor Yaffle - Everyone Wants To Dream

Liverpool locals Professor Yaffle have returned with their fifth album ‘Everyone Wants to Dream’, an almost surrealist reflection on life itself, with all the journeys, memories, and crippling nostalgia we collect along the way. Their hometown plays a vital role in this pondering, the scenic location of Everton Brow referenced throughout the project, depicted in the album cover, as photographed by Karl Hughes in 1979. Everton Brow acts as both a literal viewing platform, as well as a symbolic one, upon which one’s long passed dreams and hopes can be seen and remembered. 

The spot appears in the first track ‘On Top of the World’, which establishes the whimsical Psychedelia that grounds the album artistically, making it a cohesive project throughout. Pink Floyd-esque string arrangements, painting beautiful harmonies, give the album a sense of gravitas, and only adds to the nostalgic weight it carries. The third track, poetically titled ‘A Whispering Amid the River Reeds’, begins with an acoustic, almost Folky, guitar intro dragging these emotions with it, before the instrumentation swells, as a reverberated piano and string section only adds to the moony introspection. 

The members of Professor Yaffle are undeniably gifted musicians, the artistry of the album prevalent not only through its cohesion, but also each songs’ interesting structure and development. In an era of short-term media supremacy and ultra-convenient consumption, many newer songs have shrunk in terms of length. Nevertheless, ‘Everyone Wants to Dream’ contains a majority of songs nearing (or even surpassing) five minutes, allowing the tracks to flesh out and progress in interesting ways. 

A standout moment in the album is the guitar solo in ‘The City Bells’, which is caked in an emotive kind of frantic trepidation. It adds to the classic-sounding sonic microcosm the album creates, simultaneously taking you back in time, whilst also keeping you in pensive contemplation about your present life. 

It is clear Liverpool is of great importance to frontman Lee Rogers, who described the album as a “stoned love letter to Liverpool”, a city in which he and the band no doubt have endless memories. As the heights of Everton Brow served as his emotional vantage point, this album does well to serve as ours.