Album Review: You're Dreaming by The Cactus Blossoms

You're Dreaming, the 2016 album from the Minneapolis alt-country brotherly duo the Cactus Blossoms, is a bit of a throwback to a different time -- specifically, the spare, airy records of the '50s, where the production never got in the way of the songs or the voices. Harmonies are a specialty of the Cactus Blossoms. The duo pattern themselves after the candied interplay of the Everly Brothers, a sound that isn't heard enough in modern Americana, not even after a rash of Everly tributes appeared in the mid-2000s.

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The Cactus Blossoms are the latest in a long line of 21st century acts to mine music from the first half of the 20th century (well, pre-1960, at least) for inspiration. Brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey sing simple songs that hearken back to the early days of country and pre-rock and roll popular music. With their constant harmonizing and their tendency towards the wistful, if not maudlin, their sound consists of equal parts Hank Williams and the Everly Brothers, with various other minor twists lurking around the edges.

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“We weren’t born in the wrong era,” say Minnesotan brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum, a.k.a. the Cactus Blossoms. “We just got into some music from a different era and found a way to make it our own,” they add. “You’re Dreaming,” entirely made up of original material save for one cover of a song by obscure Sun artists Alton & Jimmy, is a splendid confirmation of that claim.

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