Impossible Dream is the second Rubs album, but there is still only one person behind the curtain. Joey Rubbish wrote, performed and recorded the entire thing himself at home in Chicago, which makes the record’s looseness slightly deceptive. Nothing about it feels like a stiff studio exercise assembled one instrument at a time. It has the push and mess of a little rock band playing together, except the whole band is one guy repeatedly answering himself. That is part of the charm. Impossible Dream sounds carefully built without sounding overworked. The guitars buzz and chime, harmonies drift a little off perfect, drums hit with enough grit to keep the songs from turning glossy, and twelve tracks move by in about thirty-eight minutes with almost no wasted motion. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
“Wrong/Right Girl” opens the album with the emotional formula already fully assembled: attraction, confusion, pursuit, and the nagging suspicion that desire itself may be the problem. HoZac described the record as moving through girls, summer, breakups and tight jeans, which sounds almost absurdly simple until the songs start demonstrating how much mileage can be pulled from those subjects. Rubbish does not treat romance as grand destiny. It is closer to a repeating mechanical problem that keeps producing different names and slightly different outcomes. The songs are full of wanting someone, losing someone, waiting for someone, realizing someone is too young, or discovering that the whole thing has already gone sideways.
That is why all the named songs matter. “Judy,” “Amy,” “Oh Ruby,” and “Emily” turn the album into a loose little directory of people who may or may not exist exactly as sung. Each name creates specificity without requiring a detailed narrative. The effect is similar to old girl-group singles and early rock-and-roll records where a first name can carry an entire emotional situation. “Judy” is especially economical at just over two minutes. There is no need to build a cathedral around the idea. The hook arrives, the guitars punch through, the song makes its case and leaves. “Amy” continues that approach, while “Oh Ruby” slows the emotional temperature just enough to reveal how much Elvis Costello-style nervous vulnerability sits underneath the Rubs’ garage-rock exterior. A contemporary review specifically heard that Costello quality in “Oh Ruby,” and it is a useful comparison because Rubbish often sounds like somebody trying to sound confident while the song itself keeps exposing the panic underneath. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
“A Girl Like You” and “Too Young For Me” make the record’s directness almost comical. The titles tell you exactly where the songs are going before they begin, but that predictability is not a weakness. Power pop depends on taking extremely familiar emotional material and making the listener care again through melody, arrangement and timing. Impossible Dream does that repeatedly. These are not songs built around lyrical riddles. They are songs built around the pleasure of hearing a chorus land exactly where it should.
“Wrap My Life” is another example of how Rubbish can make vulnerability sound almost physical. The phrase itself suggests somebody trying to reorganize an entire life around another person, which is both romantic and slightly alarming. That double feeling runs throughout the record. Desire keeps expanding until it becomes impractical. The singer wants too much, waits too long, reaches at the wrong moment or discovers the other person has already moved on. The album’s title begins making more sense the farther it goes. The dream is impossible not because love is fake, but because the songs keep demanding a version of it that reality refuses to provide.
“Why Did Your Love Run Out?” states the problem directly. There is something beautifully old-fashioned about that title. It treats love almost like fuel that should have lasted longer but did not. The song fits perfectly into a record obsessed with emotional supply and depletion. “Why Won’t You Wait?” later asks the opposite question. One person is running out while another person wants time to stop. Impossible Dream keeps approaching relationships from different angles but rarely escapes the same basic instability.
The title track sits near the end and functions less like a grand centerpiece than a summary of everything surrounding it. The impossible dream is not some abstract ambition. It is the repeated hope that this next person, this next relationship, this next conversation might finally resolve the tension that has been driving the previous songs. The record never entirely believes that hope, but it cannot stop returning to it either. That tension gives the album more emotional coherence than the bright guitars might initially suggest.
Musically, Impossible Dream sits squarely inside classic power-pop territory without feeling trapped there. The obvious ancestors are Big Star, the dB’s, the Nerves, Nick Lowe, the Real Kids, the Plimsouls and Rockpile, all artists HoZac itself points toward when describing the Rubs. There is also a slightly rougher modern edge, enough garage scuff and home-recorded grain to keep the album from turning into a museum piece. The Fire Note heard both Big Star and Elvis Costello in the record while also comparing its looseness to the Strokes and Connections. That spread of references makes sense because the album lives in the overlap between polished songwriting and imperfect recording. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
The home-recording aspect is crucial. Impossible Dream does not sound expensive, but it also does not sound accidental. Rubbish clearly knows where each part belongs. The vocals are doubled and stacked when they need to be. Guitar lines interact instead of merely sitting on top of chords. The drums provide enough snap to keep everything moving while leaving room for the melodies. The imperfections are useful because they prevent the songs from becoming sterile. A harmony that is slightly rough can feel more human than a perfectly tuned one, especially on songs already built around emotional misfires.
The album also benefits from restraint. Twelve songs, most between two and four minutes, means the ideas are given enough room without being stretched into importance. Power pop can become exhausting when every song behaves like the greatest chorus ever written. Impossible Dream avoids that problem by varying the intensity. Some songs rush. Others lean back. “Oh Ruby” breathes differently from “Judy.” “Emily” occupies a slightly larger emotional space. “I Wanted You Tonight” closes the record with the kind of title that could summarize almost everything before it.
That closer is especially fitting because it ends the record on desire rather than resolution. The wanting remains active. Nothing has been solved. The impossible dream remains impossible. Yet the songs are so buoyant that the lack of resolution never feels tragic. The record turns frustration into propulsion. Failed romance becomes guitar rhythm. Waiting becomes harmony. Confusion becomes another hook.
HoZac called the album vulnerable and confident at the same time, and that is probably the best way to understand why Impossible Dream works. The songs are emotionally exposed but musically assured. Rubbish may sound uncertain about people, but he sounds completely certain about how a power-pop song should move. That confidence keeps the record from collapsing into self-pity.
The album was released in 2017 as HZR-191, with several small vinyl pressings that sold through in succession. The Rubs’ own Bandcamp credits Joey Rubbish, under his given name J. Montanaro, with writing, performing and recording everything at home in Chicago, with Shimby McCreery mastering and artwork by Paulina Zelek. Those details reinforce what the record already sounds like: one person building an entire little pop universe by himself and somehow making it feel communal. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
That may be the most impressive thing about Impossible Dream. Plenty of one-person records sound like one-person records. This one sounds populated. Every guitar answer, harmony, drum fill and backing vocal makes the room feel more crowded. The illusion becomes part of the pleasure.
The dream may be impossible.
The hooks are not.
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