I’ve followed Chelsea Gilliland, aka Chelsea King, on Instagram for longer than I can remember. In the early days, when she fronted the rock band CHLSY, I was less taken with her songs than her comedic chops, as the tunes often turned into headbanger affairs and me, hey, take a look about this blog—I’m more of a head nodder. But, like I said, her posts made me laugh and/or smile, so I stuck around.
I’m glad I did. The more I heard her music, the less heavy it sounded. CHLSY’s Quantum Entanglement album of 2022 reminded me of the modern rock of the 1990s and early 2000s, when bands and artists such as Belly, the Breeders, Juliana Hatfield and Liz Phair infused their songs with equal dollops of pop and punk. That’s when I realized that, in those early Instagram forays, I’d confused Gilliland and CHLSY for another singer and band whose sound is indeed a tad too metallic for my taste. Doh!
I’ll Meet You in Dreams—Chelsea Gilliland’s solo debut—retains the intoxicating pop-infused rock of Quantum Entanglement. My wife hears an ‘80s element to the music, too. I agree to an extent; at times it sounds like a cross between the Go-Go’s and Dream Syndicate. Diane also tells me that several songs sport a Taylor Swift influence; I can neither confirm nor deny that claim, however. Though I enjoyed the Eras (Taylor’s Version) concert film, I’m not well versed in anything Swift—not even her choruses.
In any event, the 10-track set opens with the catchy “Daisy Buchanan,” about losing one’s self in fictional bliss, and continues with the snappy “Wish,” which sounds like a lost track from the Clueless soundtrack. (I say that with certainty, having just watched the film for the umpteenth time a few weeks back. It never gets old.)
“It Makes Me Think of You” follows the soft-loud-soft formula followed by a slew of alternative bands back in the day, though the loud thankfully doesn’t induce one’s eardrums to bleed. Like the other tracks, it’s an engaging tune. Speaking of blood: the skin-piercing “Vampire” bites into bad dreams and romantic disillusionment. “Outer Space Vacation,” on the other hand, is less a month-long vacation in the stratosphere and more Gilliland wondering whether she’s falling in love. Here’s a live version:
The compact “Crush!,” for its part, sounds like a hidden track on Belly’s still-twinkling Star, at home alongside “Feed the Tree” and “Dusted.” It compares the infatuations of youth to the love she believes she’s found as an adult. “Digital Dreamscape” is a restrained delight, with Gilliland’s vocals reminding me—as I now realize they do throughout the album—of Tanya Donelly’s. The compelling “Hiraeth” yearns and burns for an “idealized version of a love that could have been,” while “Don’t” finds her drowning in a sea of love. The set closes with “In Dreams,” about a past love that haunts her, still: “People grow and people change/Now I don’t know what to do/‘Cause I’ve seen the depths of you.”
As a whole, I’ll Meet You in Dreams conjures the spiky sounds played on WLIR, WDRE and other modern-rock stations back in the day. But, as all things music, one need not know any of the references I’ve tossed about throughout this review. These are strong songs, all, with heady beats guaranteed to get you out of your seat and dancing about the room.
Making it all the more impressive: Although Gilliland’s CHLSY bandmates, bassist Sean Swanson and drummer Sawyer Dodds, appear here and there, the bulk of the album features Gilliland on all instruments but drums, which are primarily pounded by Tom Coleman, while Geoff Brennan plucks the upright bass on one song.
The album can be streamed everywhere, while an LP can be purchased direct through the Chelsea King website.
The tracks:
The Old Grey Cat 
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