ALBUM REVIEW: On ‘Oh Brother,’ Dawes Offer a Front Row Seat to Life as We Know It

With the shattering strike of a snare, Oh Brother comes to life and so, too, does the latest iteration of Dawes. 

For the first time in nearly a decade, it’s just brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith leading the charge. The 2023 departure of bandmates Wylie Gelber and Lee Pardini ushered in a new era for the folk-rock outfit and lent to a family jewel of a ninth album. 

Past releases cemented Dawes as quite the listening experience. They’ve consistently had a finger on the pulse of something difficult to explain, a non-thing that always seems to strike a chord. With a catalog of confounding songs – inconsequential and yet consuming numbers that are, at once, hypnotically mundane and shruggingly profound – Dawes has spent years putting to words impossible feelings and providing connection in times of quiet crisis. 

Once again, the siblings have tapped into that very non-thing.  

Oh Brother is born from a barrage of jarring cadences and electric grooves as listeners are first introduced to “Mister Los Angeles,” a snide but catchy jeer at the modern world’s nipped-and-tucked facade. It is quickly followed by the infectious jam, “Front Row Seat,” another shoulder-shrugging take on life as we know it. From there, an entrancing mix of philosophical prattle, satire-shrouded confessions, and happy sad soliloquies parade. 

At moments, Oh Brother is uncomfortable and exposing. The pointed “King of the Never-Wills” and the cynical “Hilarity Ensues” unfurl cinematic, cautionary tales about the lies we’re told and the ones we tell ourselves. However, the album is also forgiving and embracing. The tip-toeing “Enough Already” is a sympathetic ode to the in-betweeners. The sunshiny “House Parties” is a much-needed psalm of small joys. 

Dawes cuts and consoles against a staggering soundscape where guitar-talking, folk-rock, bleary-eyed grooves, and a kind of misfit pop all blur into one succinct soundtrack for these unprecedented times, for all of our missteps and everything we’re still doing right. 

Dawes’s Oh Brother releases Oct. 11 on Dead Ringers.