A supergroup of 2010s hardcore bands, Climates, Casey and Napoleon, Exit Dream released only three singles. Casey’s reunion had stopped them in their tracks, and now only vocalist Wes Thompson remains. Never letting go of that supergroup status, they instead include Ashley Green of Holding Absence, as well as Luke Shadrick and Murry Deaves, best known for their photography and videography.
“Out Your Skin” is a dark, cinematic piece that recalls the post-rock soundscapes of God Is an Astronaut and This Will Destroy You. By subtracting the genre’s trope of plodding builds, the song makes way for more conventional pop songwriting. Its dynamics ebb between brooding verses and epic, ethereal choruses. Shaped by Dreambound’s melodic hardcore scene, Exit Dream sit within the post-rock strand of “dreamcore”, defined by Holding Absence and Parting Gift dialling back the genre’s intensity.
Clouded behind shoegaze-esque guitar textures, dense with cavernous reverb, the song centres on Thompson’s clean singing. Underutilised in Climates and Napoleon, he now commands harmonies and melodies that haunt and encircle the listener in a manner similar to Autumn’s Grey Solace. However, for a song with such a pop-centric structure, they place more emphasis on soundscapes than on hooks. Its lyrics are mostly repetition of a few vague lyrics that lack the emotion of contemporaries Lastelle and Casey, or the storytelling of Lonesome and Holding Absence.
At the time of Exit Dream’s 2022 launch, dreamcore was in a rut. In the four years since, they have only gotten more striking. Between the 2025 releases of Lastelle, Lonesome and Love Is Noise, Exit Dream no longer feel alone in their mission.