How Puma Blue Is Going to Die

On Croak Dream, Jacob Allen turns a dream about death into his most revealing album yet.

By Stephan Boissonneault

Published on February 5, 2026

For an artist like Jacob Allen, known in the music world as Puma Blue, it helps to think of his albums as entities — living, mysterious beings derived from little moments in his life. To him, this brand new album, Croak Dream, is a static-ridden cat. “Like a heavy, thudding cat that has been lying on a static jumper or something,” he says with a little chuckle, talking to RANGE from his home in Atlanta.

The more you think about it, the more this analogy makes sense. Cats are solitary and generally reserved creatures that aren’t afraid to ambush you in the pitch-black dead of night. Croak Dream has all of the classic Puma Blue sounds — smoky and hushed R&B vocals, layers of indie-jazz guitar work, and lo-fi dub beat production — but it also carries this loner, cat-like quality that, in its first three songs, lulls you into a sense of hazy security. Then the last half of the title track, “Croak Dream,” stabs through the static with a noisy, disorderly finish. It’s different, and perhaps darker, than anything Allen has produced before, and that mood lingers throughout the album. “It’s the longest and heaviest thing I’ve ever put out,” he says.

This darker, dirge-tinged feeling stayed with Allen as he was writing the album, mostly because he had death on his mind — specifically, how he would die. This is where the title Croak Dream comes from.

“A croak dream is when you have a premonition about how you die, and then, I guess, once you wake up, it’s like yours to choose what to do with that information,” he says. “You could try to prevent it, or maybe you would live life differently.” The dream may also inspire you to take more risks, be more generous, and have more fun in life — or, in Allen’s case, his songwriting process.

“I just started thinking, ‘What if I stopped being shy?’ And just let it all hang out and try to be as brutally honest with myself as possible on this album,” Allen says. “Like thinking ‘This album is mine. Let’s throw caution to the wind and be more raw with my gut feeling of going with the boldest and strangest ideas.’” This feeling was also focused on in the lyrical writing process.

Lyrically, Puma Blue songs are usually quite vague, like an obscure painting you find in a dusty gallery without any explanation as to what or who it came from. Contrasting that, Croak Dream’s first song is “Desire,” and the lyrics are very much about Allen’s hunger and pining for someone.

“I think I wouldn’t have allowed myself to write a song like that a few years ago because I would have just felt like ‘Oh, it’s too much information, or it’s too intimate or sexual,” he says.

As with the title track, Allen says it was the most cathartic song he’s written in a while. Without giving too much away, “Croak Dream” is about disposing of the ghosts and demons that haunt your dreams. The song also has a Playstation video game-inspired music video, animated by an artist who goes by Quill, that features Allen and members of his band as 32-bit video game characters. Allen’s character, in particular, has to navigate a thick fog and choose to surrender or kill his doppelganger.

“I was at a real low with that feeling before writing this song,” Allen says. “I think this goes for the more sombre and heavier songs on it as well, but it’s been a real alchemical process to turn these shitty feelings into something I love so much.”