Description
The fifth studio album from Dawes, 2016’s cheekily titled We’re All Gonna Die, finds the rootsy Los Angeles outfit pushing its melodic, literate roots rock in an artsier, more sonically experimental direction. Following up the group’s engaging 2015 effort All Your Favorite Bands, We’re All Gonna Diefeels like the beginning of a creative transformation where the band begins to shed all genre constraints and influences, emerging as its own fantastically musical creature. It brings to mind the early-2000s metamorphosis of Wilco, the most obvious antecedent to Dawes‘ own thinking-man’s folk-rock aesthetic. Still centered on lead singer/songwriter Taylor Goldsmith, Dawes take all the poignant twang that made up their previous work and imbue it with a tactile, delicately experimental vibe on a set of songs that are as imaginative and catchy as ever.
Some of the credit for the band’s auspicious phonic shift here must go to former Dawes guitarist Blake Mills, who returned to handle production duties.
