“Madness Gladness” is the latest release by Zachary Mason, an outstanding English artist based in Guildford. It’s his second piece of work in 2025, arriving as an adequate follow-up of “I Wish Humans Were Made In Factory,” another marvelous composition released earlier this year that you should also check out as soon as possible. Still, his latest piece of sonic artistry arrives with many innovations in songwriting, composing, arranging, and producing, showcasing the natural progression of an already incredible artist. Lyrically, the song talks about a fictional character who is overcome with the power of love, which brings madness but also gladness! Although “Madness Gladness” talks about a fictional character, it’s a highly relatable composition that will resonate with the broader auditorium. He tackles themes of love, relationships, various sentiments, moods, situations, and circumstances, so listeners will find themselves in these lyrics. Sonically, the artist combines a singer-songwriter approach with several complementary music genres, creating a lush ambiance that immediately wraps around the listening apparatus. Perhaps Dream Pop comes to mind first, but you’ll also stumble upon many other elements borrowed from indie pop, indie rock, soft rock, and shoegaze. He uses all these additional sonic ingredients as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to uplift this song to an entirely new level while simultaneously remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction. His composition shines with all those qualities that meet the trends of contemporary music production yet there’s a subtle touch of nostalgia lurking around for an extra kick. Therefore, these experimentations with different approaches and complementary styles resulted in a memorable, engaging, otherwordly dream pop track that will immediately resonate with the fans of the genre and beyond.
The calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal ambiance makes “Madness Gladness” such an incredible composition that instantly grabs you by the collar and refuses to let it go long after the last notes and beats end. Zachary Mason achieved this atmosphere by stacking many layers of impressive guitar works. You’ll notice how all these layers articulate around without overwhelming each other, and it’s one of those details that vividly showcases Zachary Mason’s dedication to the craft. The guitars are solely responsible for such a majestic, otherworldy, cinematic ambient that not only carries the listener throughout the entire song but also acts as a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. The interplay between catchy, memorable, engaging, mesmerizing, reverby chord progressions and calm, soothing, relaxing themes, melodies, harmonies, and other sonic maneuvers continuously circulates around, and it unquestionably creates a sonic scenery that immediately gets into your ears. In the meantime, Zachary Mason’s soulful, passionate, sincere, confident, emotional, and powerful vocal performance elevates “Madness Gladness” to new heights. His calm voice seamlessly balances over low, mid, and high notes, emphasizing everything he intended to achieve with this number. Besides decorating all those segments and instrumentations, these vocal harmonies contribute emotional depth and more complexity to an already intricate song structure. It’s nearly mindblowing how all these guitars works suit vocals harmoniously throughout the entire track, making “Madness Gladness” such a pleasant listening experience worth repeating over and over again.
Of course, this composition wouldn’t sound this good without a rock-solid rhythm section. You’ll notice all those equally impressive, intricate, vividly hearable, warm-sounding basslines lurking beneath the guitar layers, providing more heaviness, clarity, and depth while serving as glue between mentioned orchestrations and rhythmic patterns. These low-ends are rich, deep, dense, and heavy, contributing more power and detail to this track. In the meantime, the tastefully assembled, expertly performed, well-accentuated, moderate beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics keep the remainder of the orchestrations in line while dictating the groove and pace. Every hit of the snare, kick of the bass drum, and accentuation on the cymbals cut the calm ambiance, adding more complexity and details to an already intricate yet atmospheric track. Zachary Mason undoubtedly invested heart and soul in this track, resulting in a dream pop masterpiece not only suitable for the fans of the genre, but anyone who appreciates cleverly composed and flawlessly performed music. His ideas, talent, creativity, skills, and musicianship shine here, as he delivers one of the finest dream pop songs you’ll encounter in 2025. If you’re looking for a catchy, memorable, unique listening experience, Zachary Mason’s “Madness Gladness” will be a perfect pick for you. Therefore, do not miss this incredible track. “Madness Gladness” is available on all streaming platforms.
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