As bird songs and street noise flutter and swell, a voice flows through the cascading soundscape, singing “we’re living in a dreamworld, so don’t forget it.” It’s a call to arms, a battle cry for introspection that sets the tone for “Dreamworld”, the 2017 release from IVORY HOURS. Weaving through its ethereal sounds and pithy declarations, you feel the nagging suspicion that our world is far from black and white; it’s shaped by our imagination.

Fusing alternative rock with a modern pop aesthetic, IVORY HOURS is a group defined by their resistance to convention— their melodies are massive but ethereal; their anthems soaring, yet intimate. Now based in Toronto, Canada, the band was formed in 2012 by songwriter Luke Roes and later joined by Chris Levesque and Thomas Perquin. Roes’s words are honest and insightful, whether he’s penning treatises on modern love (“Invincible”), feminist anthems (“Shadow Kids”) or delving deeper, musing on ideas of divinity and shared enlightenment in a post religious age (“Dreamworld”).

IVORY HOURS’ sound has come full circle, building on their 2015 release ‘Morning Light’ and commercial radio debut “Warpaint”. Transforming their art-rock beginnings into a farther reaching ethos, “Dreamworld” represents a new era, juxtaposing synthesizers and monolithic hooks with walls of guitar and fuzzed out bass. Simultaneously ambitious and resolute, “Dreamworld” proves that IVORY HOURS is a band you shouldn’t sleep on.