The Punk Site 2022 Top 20: Praise – All In A Dream

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Resting at Number 19 in our seasonal countdown of The Punk Site‘s contributors favourite releases from 2022 is Baltimore’s Praise with their third album, All In A Dream, that is available via Revelation RecordsAll In A Dream is a burst of positive energy through nine songs of springy, melodic-hardcore. The album darts and dashes through scenes, decades, and genres, united by the core tenets of a catchy song and the impulse to deliver a message. Exploring the themes of introspective struggle, imagining a better world outside of our own, and the evolution of grief throughout the years, the tracks are relatable and hopeful. To achieve the sound found across the record, the band worked with producer and engineer Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations in Baltimore with Brian McTernan (Be Well) as second producer. 

“So how do you not fall down a very deep pit of being just another soundalike, a band that simply copies and never aspires to be more.  The answer is you do what Praise do, you take all that history, add a huge splash of yourself into it, and lets be honest here, if you play this style of Punk, there is no way your ever going to throw the shackles of comparisons fully, so embrace that, yet bring even more to the party like this band have … Stunningly simple, yet astoundingly complex sounds and words that combine to be fully in the now, by combining all the wonders of what can be gleaned from a Hardcore grounding.” (Mark Cartwright May 2022)