Drew Thomas blows up the fantasy on the huge 'American Dreams'

Drew Thomas sounds increasingly like an artist determined to make his songs feel as big as the questions inside them. And on his latest offering 'American Dreams', he turns the volume up on fame, beauty, money and ambition, building a guitar-driven anthem around the uncomfortable possibility that getting everything you were taught to want might still leave you empty.

Billboards, magazine covers, perfect bodies, packed-out shows and the promise of a huge house all flash past like symbols from some glossy cultural instruction manual. And here, he takes those aspirations and pushes them until the fantasy starts to look grotesque, with "sell your soul just to be on the screen" landing as the track’s sharpest distillation of the bargain being offered.

The guitars hit hard, the hooks are built for scale and there's a restless early-2000s energy running through the track that recalls the era of scratched CDs, music television and overblown rock choruses without simply trying to recreate it.

Ultimately, 'American Dreams' feels like the natural next step after 'Boys Aren’t Supposed to Cry' and 'Soda Friends'. Those songs dealt with masculinity, emotional repression, nightlife and fleeting connection; while this one zooms out and attacks the pressure to build an entire life around external approval.

Drew Thomas is at his best when vulnerability and swagger crash into each other, and 'American Dreams' makes that tension feel enormous. He's clearly ambitious, clearly drawn to big songs and big stages, and it feels like one of Drew Thomas' most confident releases yet. Delivering a song that takes the dream apart without losing any of the thrill of wanting something more.