Normal Town is the third album from acclaimed Oxfordshire five-piece, The Dreaming Spires, and their first new music in nearly a decade. However, a decade-long hiatus from recording hasn’t dimmed the band’s love of rock ‘n’ roll romance with a record that has both nostalgia-fuelled anthems and reflective ballads on themes such as escape, alienation and atomisation – but where the redemptive power of music ultimately wins out.
The Dreaming Spires’ new album title has its origins in the neighbouring town of Didcot, where the band’s founding members and brothers, Joe and Robin Bennett, reside. A 2017 study found that Didcot closely matched the national median average for a range of different statistics, earning it the sobriquet “the most normal town in England” – and hence the inspiration for this, the band’s third recording, their first in nearly a decade.
Normal Town, the opening song and title track, is a piano-driven anthem whose elegiac and stately tone makes for a curiously moving tune about a place in South Oxordshire, but it’s also about much more, being a nostalgic look back at adolescence with dreams of running away (but where there’s no place to run to), while also proving something of a celebration of the familiar. It would prove an excellent aural companion to Michael Foley’s book, ‘Embracing The Ordinary’, which adopts a similar approach to encouraging pleasure in the mundane and everyday.
Normalisation, its follow-up – written by lead singer, Robin Bennett – strikes an entirely different tone. While it has a sunny-sounding disposition, its lyrics are far darker and more topical. Although written in 2020, it feels more apposite than ever, at a time when politicians appear almost daily to test the boundaries of acceptable discourse on subjects like race and immigration without consequence – “the normalisation of hate in this nation” – referred to in this song. A defiant message of resistance (“We are the protectors and they shall not pass”), the track still manages to conclude on a message of hope: “We can work for a future a little better than the last”.
Cooling Towers, its country-flavoured successor, refers to the town’s power station chimneys which were finally torn down in 2019, Robin Bennett a witness to the transforming effects of their demolition, while 21st Century Light Industrial alludes to an industrial park nearby where all the band members have worked at some point, this number addressing the monotony of local jobs (“Got to be more than this, because we barely exist”), alongside the lack of infrastructure and green space in the town. Robin’s weary vocal is nonetheless lifted by an opening Tom Petty-like groove and a light, engaging melody.
Stolen Car, the third, and most recent single from the album, is a real highlight, its chugging riff overlaying a powerful, Springsteen-esque anthem, telling a slightly embellished tale of a friend’s life on the wrong side of the tracks; again a depiction of how the system is loaded against ordinary working people (“We don’t even pretend, we’ll get there in the end”). Music, however, is always a saving grace: “I’ve got a worn out soul, but I’m still on my feet; Give me that rock ‘n’ roll, I wanna feel my heart beat; Let the sirens wail, cos I know every street”.
It’s followed by Faraway Blue Skies, which continues the theme of escapism, while Linescapes, based on the book with the same title by ecologist Hugh Warwick, is a reflection on the man-made lines in our landscape, which aren’t always a negative thing, but can also provide opportunities for adaptable wildlife to flourish. Its uplifting tone is perfectly suited to the song’s subject matter.
Bitter Pill is something of a three-minute plea for togetherness, while Coming Home is somewhat redolent of Crosby, Stills and Nash, the song taking its inspiration from the life of a touring musician (“I feel like I’m a rolling stone”), and the sense of dislocation that results from being away from home so often.
In complete contrast, Where I’m Calling From has a distinctly otherworldly feel, with its echoey vocal sounding like it was beamed in from outer space. Some excellent production values here, perhaps down to the work by Tony Poole, who was responsible for mastering the album.
Real Life signs off the record and brings matters full circle with an acoustic-led, rootsy-based number that feels like something of an acceptance of the everyday, when so many of the songs on the album feel like a yearning for escape. Home is clearly where the heart is.
Although it would be an exaggeration to describe Normal Town as a concept album, its themes of life in a small town, alongside dreams of escape and nostalgia, are somewhat reminiscent of a record like The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. If that’s a pointer to the scale of their ambition, ten years on from their last album, then there’s still much more to look forward to from The Dreaming Spires.
Normal Town (November 7th, 2025) Clubhouse Records
Bandcamp: https://thedreamingspires.bandcamp.com/album/normal-town
Normal Town UK Tour
6th November, The Water Rats, London
7th November, Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot
8th November, Great Easton Village Hall, Great Easton
12th November, The Eagle Inn, Salford
13th November, The Rum Shack, Glasgow
15th November, Music in the Hall, Bewdley
Tickets: https://thedreamingspires.co.uk/