The title of Dawes’ 9th studio album, in true Dawes fashion, invites us to read a little bit deeper depending on how you look at it. Oh Brother conveniently leaves out punctuation so that we, the listener, can interpret it in different ways.
The first way to read into the title is its classic usage— A Charlie Brown coined phrase said with a sigh of frustration and exasperation. It’s familiar trouble, but it has that sense of acceptance, as if the speaker has been here before. Oh Brother!
In Dawes’ case, the phrase resonates on a deeper level given the band’s recent lineup shifts. In spring of 2023, founding member and bassist Wylie Gelber exited the group to pursue some killer new projects. Then, just seven months later, keyboardist Lee Pardini, who had been an integral part of their keyboard sound since 2015, also left the band. As they entered 2024, Dawes found themselves stripped down to what could best be described as three-ish members: Brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, and their touring guitarist, Treavor Meaner. While the group has weathered lineup changes before, Dawes has never before been this alone.
This brings us to the second way to interpret Oh Brother: as a way to address a sibling. In this reading, the title is more personal and affectionate – even if it still carries that hint of sibling frustration, perhaps evident by the exhausted expressions of the Goldsmith brothers on the album cover. It’s a phrase that acknowledges the inevitable quirks, annoyances, and bonds that come with being siblings. For the Goldsmiths, it’s an acknowledgement to their history, their connection and the resilience that keeps them moving forward, even as the band’s sound – and their members – morph and evolve.
Whichever way you read it, Oh Brother embodies both tones throughout its runtime while still sounding like Dawes. The album is playful and affectionate, but also occasionally weary—frustrated, even. It’s an album born out of new challenges and the uncertainty of venturing into uncharted territory as a stripped-down version of themselves. Dawes, however, has always thrived on adapting to change, experimenting with new sounds, and embracing collaborations on every album. This time, they’ve brought in longtime friend and producer Mike Viola, whose influence can be felt in the album’s sprawling, genre-hopping tracklist. Viola isn’t alone, either; several other outside collaborators join the fold, including Brad Paisley on a version of House Parties, and Madison Cunningham on the driving third track, Still Strangers Sometimes.
The album kicks off with Mister Los Angeles, a sharp-eyed commentary on the cartoonish fads, trends, and contradictions of modern-day California—a theme that’s been a long-standing favorite for the brothers Goldsmith, Angelinos natives through and through. Taylor Goldsmith’s lyrics are more adventurous and absurd than ever before – within the second line of this song, he’s already singing about smoking DMT with a personal trainer. The song continually gets more humorous, and you can practically hear the grin on his face as he delivers lines like: I have a friend who wouldn’t name his children / He says that it requires their consent / The oldest likes to go by ‘Kitchen’ / The baby thinks her name is ‘Made a Mess.’ It’s that kind of songwriting that puts Goldsmith up there on many people’s GOAT list, a songwriter who can take the bizarre, the mundane and the moments that matter, stitching them together so seamlessly, it feels like the lyrics were there all along.
Listening to Oh Brother front to back, it’s easy to see it as a summation of Dawes. Many of the songs could easily be placed on previous records, giving both Dawes-Heads (or whatever the official title is for their diehard fans) and newcomers something for everyone. Tracks like Front Row Seat unleash a rush of energy, reminiscent of Rush themselves, and wouldn’t feel out of place on 2022’s jammy Misadventures of Doomscroller. King of the Never-Wills sounds like it could have fit in well to 2015’s fan-favorite, All Your Favorite Bands. Griffin Goldsmith steps into the lead singer spotlight – a rarity but a much welcomed place for him – with Enough Already, a song that borrows from the swampy, Blake Mills or Ry Cooder-esque grooves that the band hasn’t touched since We’re All Gonna Die back in 2016. It’s a surprising but welcome callback to that sound, showing that Dawes isn’t afraid to revisit forgotten tones, even as they push forward.
House Parties feels like another standout, a playful, almost childlike bop that masks its lyrics about abandoning tourist traps for house parties in a buoyant melody. It’s the kind of song you could imagine kids jumping along to, unaware of the irony woven into its verses. Maybe give it a listen before your kids hear it for the first time, though. You may not want a call from their teacher if some of those lyrics are repeated in class.
Yet, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that some of Dawes’ sonic experiments feel somewhat out of place on this record. In The Game, Goldsmith crafts a rock hero’s journey, reminiscent of Bad Company’s Shooting Star. But the song’s industrial, metallic, and eerie instrumentation feels at odds with the storytelling. This dissonance leaves the track feeling disjointed. Likewise, Surprise! puts the brakes on the album’s rising energy with its breathy, slower pace. The song is mostly guitar focused in its melody, but it’s easy to hear what’s missing in a song like this – contributions form a great keyboardist.
On the album’s closer, Hilarity Ensues, The song plays like a reddit thread sung over a movie score piano line, poking fun at life’s constant miscommunications and misplaced optimism. From the generational hand-me-downs of false confidence to the sly critique of religion’s empty promises, Taylor Goldsmith leads us through a prayer in the chorus before arriving at the album’s core message: life goes on.
Let our substances impair us / Let the deadly virus spare us / Let our horror movies scare us/ Then let’s do it all again
Let’s root, root for the home team / Then buy each other ice cream / Let’s live inside the daydream / That is all it’s ever been
Oh Brother is an album that reminds us that, even when everything around us feels chaotic, there’s always room for humor and hope. Life is complicated, but maybe that’s the point. Sometimes all you can do is..dare I say it…Roll With The Punches.
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