Puma Blue Pulls From Within: Within A Croak Dream

If you’ve ever found yourself staring at the ceiling at 3:00 AM, caught in that strange limbo between a fading nightmare and a cold reality, then you have already visited the world of Puma Blue. But with his latest masterpiece: Croak Dream, Jacob Allen doesn’t just visit that space, he builds a cathedral inside it.

This release is more than just an album; it’s a true sensory experience. If you’ve never heard any of Puma Blue’s work, then imagine some late night jazz in a basement bar, mixed in with the blurry aspects of Massive Attack and Portishead’s psychedelic trip hop, blended well with the vulnerability of D’Angelo, Jeff Buckley and Radiohead.

Now, about the title. A Croak Dream is when you have a premonition about how you will die. It’s all about deciding what to do with that information your vision entails.

Rather than collapsing under the weight of mortality, the record feels like a desperate, sensual embrace of life. An album about duality: darkness and light, the end of everything, and the importance of “right now.” 

The essential tracks include “Desire,” “Croak Dream,” “Hush,” and “Cocoons.” My favorites were “Hush,” Jaded,” and “Hold You.”

“Desire”: A darker trip hop style song that invites you deeper into an abyss that accepts the changes that happen when you want someone. This song is all about Allen becoming a different person because of how much he craved love. A yearners delight, Desire shows how the benefits of having someone sometimes outweigh worldly needs in the mind.

“Croak Dream”: A song beginning with a hazy dream like feeling that builds up into a hard, colorful, chaotic breakdown. A six-minute track describing the breakdown of the soul, it forces you to look directly into the sun of your own existence until the colors blur and the static takes over. With candid lyrics like: “Still as blue without you / But least I feed the ego / I won’t ever tell you”, you may realize this album is packed with confessions as well.

“Hush”: “Hush” is an intense, ghostly tune about regret, shame, and sometimes putting up a mask to what’s real. It’s a bit like the “afterlife” of the album. Lyrics like: “What do I do? – What do I say? – To make it all go away?” and “I’ll act tough – Do what I must – I’ll adorn my husk, but I can’t hold it up” show that hiding shame is more exhausting than facing the big ugly truth.

“Cocoons”: This sensual track brings a deep memorable baseline. Here, the abyss is inside of our “cocoon.” It’s dark and cramped, but it’s where all of our growth happens. To make parallels with the name, this track feels like a metamorphosis. It lets you know that by facing your Croak Dream, you’ve become something much more beautiful and vibrant. You’ve become alive. It helps you realize that darkness is only the soil that things grow in. It’s all about the magic of turning into a new being. 

Croak Dream is less of an album and more like that cathedral I was telling you about in the beginning. It’s an intentional house that Jacob Allen built to communicate his view on mortality, and the receipts from important lessons he’s faced. He writes about what he would’ve chosen, if only he knew his own fate. It’s an experience on choosing to understand that our lives are in our hands, and that it’s possible to find an embrace of life in the darkness. After hearing this banger, I’m even more excited for the future of Puma Blue. Their previous ambient style albums last year: home recorded Extchamber and Antichamber were surely what I would call, transmissions from indie space. Both of those projects were supposed to be demos and were released as surprises. Croak Dream, as a full band–studio recorded project, properly communicates the idea that duality holds our personal worlds together. Don’t make the mistake of letting this one fall from your radar. This album is full of hits ready to bring you to another world of sound. And don’t forget to listen to “Hold You” a few times.