Gentilesky – Dream
It’s the end of the world, and all that’s survived is noise rock and the refusal to go quietly.
Dream, the second album by Turkish-Sardinian garage-punk rockers Gentilesky, has the same ethos of punk and noise rock: “The soundtrack should be post-what-fucking-ever, and it needs to careen at light speed with piles upon piles of noise and tension.” Epic. In some post-apocalyptic scenario (which, these days, isn’t the most difficult thing to imagine), there’s only one purpose: to survive. This record is certainly ferocious and raucous enough to make sure of that. In that respect, it’s the album we all needed.
If you were a fan of their 2024 debut Ways of Seeing, you’ll still enjoy Dream, but it’s amped up the chaotic, brash and unpredictable factor. The title suggests some kind of paradise or escapism (as, indeed, do track titles), but the tracks themselves are presented on a hellishly high-anxiety and suffocating slant.
Recorded entirely in Cagliari during the summer of 2025, “Chasing the Light” opens proceedings, with skronking bass, rollicking guitar licks and lopsided noise rock. It’s got rock’n’roll at its heart, but with the exact sound of classic punk when it split right down the middle, forking into alternate new wave and post-punk universes (think Gang of Four versus Wire). Beyond the blurred, hectic soundscape, Gentilesky’s message quickly becomes clear: this album wants you to wake up, think for yourself and do it yourself (primary vocalist Yaprak Kırdök even designs all the band’s cover art).
“Money Making” brings us into a very art-punk space, with Claudio Zucca’s wall of guitar and the band’s stilted chants. In name, “One Way Out” offers some form of escape, but, in sound, it’s ingeniously harrowing and constricting. “This is what you want, this is what you got” reminds of a similar slogan previously posed by Public Image Ltd., though Gentilesky deliver with far more immediacy and frustration.
Andrea Pilleri, on bass, has more than a few transformative moments on “Morning Regret”. Sharing the role with Kırdök, Pilleri is one half of the emotive, oscillating vocals that shape the song. With its stilted mid-section (that even gives a brief nod to Korn’s “Blind”), there are melodic U-turns promised left, right and centre.
“Dreamland”, the title track, is a passionate powerhouse that doesn’t sit still. It’s an accurate musical representation of how said dreamland is described: threatening, fractured and disorienting. Adding to that, “Back in the Days” is Gentilesky fed up with looking through rose-tinted glasses, addressing that nothing is as perfect as we remember it. Vocals are jarring and irate; there’s a jagged, stop-start chorus that later weaves between sharp tempo dips and spikes, all enhancing that noise-meets-math-rock finish. At first, you can’t work out whether you love or hate this song, but after a few listens it actually cements itself among Dream’s strongest tracks.
Despite their jaunty sound, the band prove to be a tight musical unit at all times. It’s especially evident in “1000 Kez” (1000 Times), where Kırdök delivers rapid-fire lyrics in Turkish on themes of social detachment and cultural lack of belonging. Throw a driving, powerful main hook into the mix and you’ve got yet another record highlight.
It isn’t hard to tell that Gentilesky are passionate. There’s lots of lyrical repetition throughout, reiterating their stances on social degradation, personal instability and feminism—really hammering the point home to all those that would otherwise have dismissed it or buried their heads in the sand.
Usually, album closers round things off nicely, but no such thing should happen here. And rightly so. “Why?” is the longest-running track, at almost four-and-a-half minutes, and starts melodically, though its ominous detuning never fails to build pressure all the way. It almost feels backwards: saving all the angst for the very end of the track, unleashing a repetitive mantra of “Why do I let the world decide who I am?”—rather than coming to a neat-and-tidy, conclusive outro. But that’s what makes it such a perfect fit at the end of this album.
Dream is wiry, uncomfortable and inspires aggressive self-reflection and systemic questioning. Whether you like it or not, it’s essential listening. After all, your survival is fundamentally dependent on continuing to think for yourself.
