For as long as I can remember, I’ve suffered from insomnia. Sleepless nights that seem to go on forever, eyes dry, mind overly active. The hours drag, the skin crawls. An insomniac’s daily life is a walking haze. Holding a coherent conversation is impossible. The mind that was so infuriatingly awake hours previously is now a betrayer, forcing you to roam listlessly, an aimless and desultory zombie. It’s a feeling that The American Dollar seem to know well.

A Memory Stream is awash with groggy melodies, beauteous and ethereal in equal measure. It is the audio equivalent of the deep netherworld that one encounters just before sleep finally takes hold. “The Slow Wait” is an introduction presented in two parts, the first a stunning mélange of piano arpeggios and distant drums, the second an electronic affair that falls somewhere between the hypnagogic charm of Sigur Ros and the skittering urgency of Amon Tobin.

Brilliantly, the tracks often blend into each other, leaving no space for afterthought or pause. In “Call”, tender swathes of melody and stuttering, trip-hop drumbeat give way to the exultant reverb-laden guitar army and boisterous Hammond that drives the raucous “Bump”. The best is yet to come though, and it arrives in the doublet of the strikingly gorgeous “Lights Dim” and its successor “Transcendence“. The former recalls God Is An Astronaut in their prime, its ravishing electronic undercurrent laying the foundation for some achingly lonely synths. The latter begins with a Dave Gilmour-esque guitar squall, eventually yielding to a heart-stopping organ blast before ultimately culminating in a tender robotic harmony. Both are works of rare talent and ingenuity, taking elements from electronica and post-rock and making the pairing of the two seem somehow new and vital.

The epic closer “Starscapes” is The American Dollar’s grandest statement to date, a labyrinthine excursion that, over its twelve minute lifespan, metaphorically inhales and exhales, winding and flowing like the stream of the album’s title. Voices appear in the background, like ghosts on an old ship, hiding beneath insistent drums and intricately arranged melodies. It ends in extraordinarily affecting circumstances, strings and piano conspiring to elicit warmth from the coldest of hearts.

After a couple of well-received albums that earmarked this New York duo as ones to watch, A Memory Stream should place them in the upper echelon of the post-rock world. They take that which is good about this style of music and stamp their own identity all over it, proving that it is possible to create original and stirring works in a genre oversaturated with also-rans and bands unwilling to experiment or step from the shadows of their influences.

The American Dollar’s fiscal namesake may be in the proverbial gutter right now, but they are soaring towards the heavens, righteous, triumphant, and endlessly life-affirming. This is a memory stream to willfully drown in, again and again.