A Shoreline Dream is the new project from Drop The Fear's Ryan Policky. Though prominently guitar-based, this band still inherits Drop The Fear's layered psychedelic style and a good part of its music sounds like a cross between Slowdive and Cocteau Twins.

This four-track debut EP shows a preponderant influence of the alternative music scene -- both British and American -- of the late 80s/early 90s. The very first cut, "Projections," is dark and wonderfully gothic and has the allure of a Cranes number, but possesses the warmth of Cocteau Twins. "Saturday Morning," the second track, begins with a simple alt-folk lick that sounds like something out of a Throwing Muses or even an early REM record, developing layers eventually, which elicit strange and ambiguous images.

And images are what this EP is all about. The ambient nature of the music gussies up the album with lavish textures that create mysterious forms of the music: imageries are the very essence of A Shoreline Dream's sound. This EP also is full of weird guitar textures, and the variety in the guitar styles mingles well with the ethereally doleful sound that is inherent to the band, making the record very interesting.

The guitars that make the first half of the EP are harmonious and pretty but turn grimy as the second half begins with the Swervedriver-styled "Focus The Present," which lavishes in languid guitars that are dirty and destructive, topped with the sense of pallor of an experimental Sonic Youth number, but much more subtle.

The album ends with the ultimate down-tempo track, the Radiohead-style "Motherly Advice" that has a mix of the beauty of the first two numbers and the coarseness of the third. This sleepy cut pleasantly surprises when it explodes suddenly in the midst, picking up a grungy riff with Policky's vocals raising pitches to match the bombast of the music. The song ends with the layers of music subsiding gradually, relieving its breathlessness in small measures.

A Shoreline Dream, though has a completely different sound from Drop The Fear, still shares the same inspiring effect. The fluidity in the seemingly difficult complexity of this group's music is still as present as in Drop The Fear. This sampler EP of the yet-to-be-released debut CD is enough of a proof as to what an amazing act this is, and says magnitudes of what to expect of the album and the group itself in the future.