This week’s featured Meet The Band artist is the Australian depressive doom group Dreamspeed. They just released the EP Demo. Guitarist Oli Booth introduces us to Dreamspeed.
Chad Bowar: Give us a brief history of Dreamspeed.
Oli Booth: Dreamspeed formed around June in 2025 after much dreaming and talks about potential projects. We knew it was going to be some sort of heavy/dark atmosphere but exactly how it was going to feel didn’t reveal itself until we got into the jam room. The title of the project came a long while beforehand and is explored within our song “Inverse Shadows”; Dreamspeed is the embodied sensation of sorrow and despair, like trying to scream, run or punch in a dream. We were jamming pretty heavily for the first few months, started recording Demo in November 2025 and had our first show just before the start of 2026. Just over a year later we are ready to release these six songs and kick off the next chapter.
Describe the songwriting process for Demo.
These songs have all started from a folder of skeleton tracks and bedroom recordings on my computer written a couple years ago during a somewhat condensed period. Usually starting with a mood generated from one or two chord shapes on guitar and then slowly moving into a string of chords with an idea of percussion behind them. After taking them to the rest of the group we started jamming them in a pretty loose fashion, before focussing in on the details and adding vocals. Each rehearsal session we recorded the songs as they sat and started to get an idea of how we wanted to present them.
What was the biggest challenge in its creation?
The air-conditioning not working in the control room! To be honest, it all went super smoothly. We wanted to capture exactly what we were doing in each of our rehearsal sessions in the months leading up to studio time, but with access to a better space, more recording gear and time on our hands to get it all done. We booked three days at a local studio and got everything finished by the end of the second night there. Dan was starting to get sick which is why we chose to get it all finished before the third day in case he woke up feeling really crook – we got some burgers and he did a wicked job with those bass takes.
How would you characterize its style/sound?
One of the first impressions we had gotten from a dear friend said it sounded like “depressive doom” and that’s kind of stuck ever since. It’s a demo, so it’s without lots of the bells and whistles that a big budget studio record would have – the guitars and vocals were mostly recorded without drop ins and just running the whole song start to finish. It definitely has captured the sound that we were excited about when we first jammed the songs together, and I hope our audience can feel that excitement and love for the songs that we have.
What lyrical topics do you cover?
Our songs encompass the band’s title, Dreamspeed: a feeling of sorrowing desperation and despair—like trying to run or punch in a dream. Through this distorted atmosphere of ‘dreamspeed’ as a motif, lyrics explore themes of domestic violence, trauma and abuse.
What are your goals and expectations for the album?
This is just a small starting point for us; to get something out into the world and move on with new music. It will be great to play shows and have people recognise our music from the CD/what we have online, but ultimately it’s just to showcase our sound as it stands within the first year of us being a band. We want to take these sounds around Australia, and overseas, because we’re proud of what we’ve made, but ultimately we can’t wait to move onto new sounds.
What has been your most memorable Dreamspeed live show?
In July we had our first headline show, at an art gallery by the river – it was funded by the local council with free entry and pizza provided for everyone. It was a really great atmosphere with lots of smoke and moody red lighting; a full room with everyone having a great time. It was so good to get an opportunity to close out a night and have people look forward to our set.
What are your upcoming show/tour plans?
We have a CD launch show coming up in December that we are headlining, and it’s been great getting to book local bands we really love. We also have a few things cooking away for early next year, but ultimately working towards getting over to the East coast for some shows – hopefully Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle at the least. The idea of Japan has been floating around which would be absolutely mad…so we’ll see about that.
How is the metal scene in Perth?
To be honest, we’ve been a little bit removed from the “metal” scene here, with only a couple shows that you could call a metal gig. We had a great night playing with OSDM legends Crypt Crawler, and then a wicked post-black metal show with Halo of Teeth. Where we’ve found really great connections though is in different alternative spaces, particularly with Perth screamo (Peamo) crowds, as well as within more punk leaning lineups (our first show was with post-hardcore punk band Shit Narnia, which was a really great time and the crowd was really receptive). We’ve really loved being a part of these more alternative crowds where our music can appeal to fans of all sorts of different styles such as scramz, post-black metal and noise.
What are some of your non-musical interests and hobbies?
We are all pretty active, Dan is a beast of a runner and the other three of us have started running in the last few years. Me and Han are pretty into our bike riding too, as well as our visual arts practice – Han painted the Demo cover!
What’s currently in your musical heavy rotation?
Oli – Trhä, Kaikkivaltias, Halo of Teeth
Han – Volatile Ways, Faetooth, Agalloch
Dan – Deafheaven, Loathe, Neurosis
George – Ruins of Beverast, Oranssi Pazuzu, Opeth.
(interview published November 7, 2026)
