Synth EP Review: “Dead Of Night’’ by Beachdolls

• Dead Of Night | Beachdolls
  Dead Of Night by Beachdolls, released 29 October 2025

Beachdolls’ Dead Of Night uses paranormal metaphors to explore the complexity and life’s mingled emotions. This EP carries me on a journey full of sincerity and vulnerability as it unfolds.

“Werewolves” starts with a lustrous synth drifting in slow waves as gruff notes play out below. Rob Nordli’s saxophone carries a melody reflecting passion and yearning, reaching out with full tones as Jessica Ess’s touching voice dreams with misty desire. The beat is heavy and persuasive while Rob Nordli riffs and creates intricately interwoven sounds.

The rhythm accelerates as Jessica Ess captures a dangerous attraction in her gripping voice. I enjoy the sheer depth of her expression as the saxophone leaps with fervent feeling, balanced with trembling need. The saxophone echoes in jazz-inflected motion as the vocals drift, aching and powerful.

The percussion batters while the levitating saxophone glides with heartfelt intensity and the underpinnings burst into colossal motion. Jessica Ess caresses my ears with her silky voice before the song powers on. Rob Nordli’s saxophone erupts in the background, pouring out untrammeled emotion as the gigantic drums collide and silence falls.

As the radio plays in the glow of the moonlight, the narrator says, “Claws are out and you’re howling.” She adds that “in the dead of night, I don’t want anyone else” because the desire is electrifying. She asks if the song’s subject wants her, pointing out that, in the neon lights, she doesn’t need anything else. The narrator ends by saying, “We’re bound by night, as hungry eyes with an echo intertwine and surround me.”

A slightly rough-edged synth is joined by hollow sounds that sweep to open “Sirens.” Jessica Ess’s velvety voice captures the melody with its nuanced emotional tension and the rhythm creates a steady pulse. Jessica Ess’s choppy vocals resound with feeling as the guitar unwinds in a dreamy, hurting melody. Her mixture of gentleness and strength compels me as the open-voiced synth drifts like a smooth current.

The beat cuts as aquatic sounds trickle in the background. The smoothness and sensuality of the vocal performance match the defiant, shadowed words. The guitar twists as its minor key voice creates mixed emotions. In the distance, washing notes flicker with azure light while the synth washes like waves. Rippling sounds run past as Jessica Ess casts a spell with her voice before the oceanic power of the undercurrent supports the flashing, ragged guitar before the song ends.

At first, the storyteller treats the song’s subject “like a work of art” so she can draw them closer to her and she’s become “painted like a picture in your memory.” She isn’t sure this is what the other person had in mind when they asked her to write a song for them, but “now it can play in your head all the time.”

The song’s subject looks “so pathetic diving into the deep end,” as the narrator says she used to be empathetic but “now I’d let you drown.” She describes herself as a siren in the ocean, “calling to pull you under,” as she calls out into the darkness so the other person can “swim into the deep blue.” By the time they realize they’re gone, “there’s no one there to save you.”

As the song concludes, our storyteller talks of her “seduction, obsession, destruction, possession,” adding that the song’s subject’s bones will disappear into the sea.

“Shapeshifters” opens with softly vibrating synth and open-voiced notes that create a peaceful sensation. Rob Nordli’s saxophone cries out tenderly, reverberating with ardent energy. The gargantuan beat collides with thick bass as the saxophone imbues the music with deep emotion. Jessica Ess’s whisper-soft voice carries the hurting melody above the thudding rhythm as the saxophone unwinds, letting free its broken emotion.

Jessica Ess’s voice enfolds me with loss and pain, rising with dulcet tones that are still powerful. I am enchanted by the vocal performance as a cascading tonal tide tumbles down around it. The tremendous percussion supports the vocals as they tear into the music with compassionate ache while the background breathes smoothly. Rob Nordli’s saxophone drifts and waves radiate expression before the song gently breaks and falls silent.

“When every night’s a masquerade in a city that never sleeps,” the narrator says, “you sleep all day.” One strives to be what people desire, but “all the words are uninspired.” The lights may be glimmering, but they’ll fade because “in a city built on silver screens, you make believe if only in your dreams.”

In trading one’s truth for “being magazines that no one reads,” our storyteller asks, “How do you choose the face you’ll wear to be a shapeshifter?” She doesn’t recognize the song’s subject, even though she’s trying, because the other person is losing their identity.

After everything the song’s subject has been through, the narrator asks them to tell her what’s inside of them as she says, “I’d rather be irrelevant than a shapeshifter.” She describes the other person as being “painted red and drenched in gasoline” as they change shapes to “fit the mold of who you wanna be.”

Our storyteller adds that “old habits die” as the song’s subject places the blame “in toxic pills to numb the pain,” but she concludes, “Find your heart, I know it’s hell here.”

A news bulletin is joined by a strummed guitar to begin “Vampires.” Gauzy notes move as Jessica Ess’s voice unfolds with visceral sensation, carrying a melancholy melody above the intermingling strings. Jessica Ess fills her voice with gripping feeling as the synth exudes sweeping illumination.

The strings continue to flicker as notes dream with wistful pain and the vocals slide with hurt. The guitar growls more ferociously now as brightness enfolds the mournful vocal performance. Tapping percussion moves with Jessica Ess’s touching voice as it reaches out.

The beat rebounds as jewel tones glitter distantly and a sense of hope comes into the music. The rhythm is solid beneath the vocals that pierce with sincere feeling as the synth expands with a new horizon’s light. Jessica Ess is joined by a razor-sharp guitar that calls out with the steadily guiding beat, soaring with heartfelt emotion. The song ends with the vulnerable melody moving with the guitar’s strength.

From “all across the night sky, they whispered to me, from the city to the skyscrapers and bright lights,” our narrator says that they were angels who guided her toward the lake. As she travels on the train, she’s lulled by “the rumble of the static.” They told her that she’d never age, but she feels even older because “I can’t see my own reflection, even though I’ve tried.”

The storyteller thought that coming home would fix her, but “I guess they lied.” She went to Chicago, where she thought she was safe from the vampires and “the mistakes I had made on the West Coast.” She returned to the place where she made her name, but she’ll “never be the same.”

She goes on to point out that “when you’re young, you’ll invite them in, they’ll drink your blood and tell you that you owe them.” In return, you’ll give them your soul until you’re by yourself, “then the sunlight hits your window and it guides you home.”

Jet planes rumble “over places I’ve called home and neighborhoods I’ve been to or I’ll never know,” and the storyteller is afraid that if she gives in, she’ll end up alone. She concludes, “I don’t want to feed my demons, but it’s all I know.”

© 2025 Karl Magi