Featured Photo by Ben Kaye
Things are shaping up to be very different with the fifth album from Dawes, We’re All Gonna Die. For one, it’s the band’s first time working with Blake Mills as a producer since he left the group back when they were Simon Dawes. For another, it’s the first time they’ve released a record in back to back years, having just dropped All Your Favorite Bands last summer. Most apparently, however, the LP sees the band making the largest sonic shift of their career.
We got the first taste of this with lead single “When the Tequila Runs Out”, and now the title track confirms that this is a new type of Dawes record. There’s a noticeably more blue-eyed soul wrapped around the outfit’s vintage Americana stylings. Heavier, slower notes are lifted high by twinkling strings and Taylor Goldsmith’s vocals, even as he sings brooding lines like, “How can it be that bad/ If we’re all gonna die?”
Even Goldsmith himself admits it’s not your typical Dawes song, as he told The FADER he began writing the song on GarageBand. “At first it was just a means of amusing myself and I wasn’t really taking any of it too seriously,” he said. “It definitely didn’t sound like a Dawes song. But once the melody started falling into place and the words followed along, I started to think otherwise.” He went on to add, “We weren’t sure if this song was gonna fit with the rest of the material at first, but once we started playing it on our respective instruments rather hearing them programmed on a computer, not only did the track feel essential but it really defined the mood of the rest of the record.”
So for a true preview of what we can expect from We’re All Gonna Die, take a listen to the title track above.