Dawes goes prog-rock?<\/p>\n
Not exactly, but this stylistic shift is certainly not what anyone expected on the band\u2019s eighth album, and that\u2019s what makes it so much fun.\u00a0 The album is only seven songs but 47 minutes long; do the math and it\u2019ll be no surprise to learn that three of the songs clock in at around nine minutes. <\/p>\n
This is still the same laid-back Dawes, mind you, that blends \u201970s singer-songwriter soft rock (think Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac) with modern indie, but they have never written anything like the opener \u201cSomeone Else\u2019s Caf\u00e9\/Doomscroller Tries To Relax,\u201d a multi-part suite with various instrumental solos and sections that somehow hangs together around Taylor Goldsmith\u2019s emotional lyrics. It\u2019s audacious and fun and you\u2019ll want to listen to it several times to discover all the nooks and crannies, but the long guitar solo and the lovely vocal harmonies stand out the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cComes In Waves\u201d rides a hard drum beat and a sparse acoustic guitar arpeggio and the potent line \u201cI think I found something in common \/ with nothingness and God \/ You stare at either in the face too long \/ They\u2019ll do each other\u2019s job.\u201d Another electric guitar solo ends the track, which then fades into the upbeat pop of \u201cEverything Is Permanent,\u201d which sounds a bit like a cousin to the band\u2019s excellent 2018 song \u201cFeed The Fire.\u201d Like the opening track, it then moves through multiple solo sections that sound good individually before closing on a pleasant midtempo pop sound. It\u2019s less effective than \u201cCaf\u00e9\u201d but equally as fun, not least because of Goldsmith\u2019s feelings on our current digital age, which he is just old enough to not have been fully a part of for all his life.<\/p>\n
The true MVP of the disc might be \u201cGhost In The Machine\u201d; with a kinetic Southern rock beat, it\u2019s probably the best Allman Brothers-sounding song of the last 20 years by someone other than Gov\u2019t Mule. The guitar riffs and insistent piano all drive the song home and you can feel the energy and fun of the band just letting loose and playing. Not that they\u2019re turning into a jam band or anything, but the looseness is welcome. When it\u2019s missing, as on the substandard \u201cJoke In There Somewhere,\u201d the album suffers.<\/p>\n
Things sort of sputter to a close with \u201cSound That No One Made\/Doomscroller Sunrise,\u201d which is the third long track that sort of pastiches together separate songs; this time, they don\u2019t cohere into a memorable whole, and the jamming isn\u2019t as necessary. There are some lovely (albeit bleak) parts about nearing the end of one\u2019s life, ending the album on an acoustic downer; it would have been better served higher up in the runtime, or trimmed by several minutes. <\/p>\n
Still, those first four songs are some of Dawes\u2019 best work ever and one of the most fun alt-rock albums to come out in the last year. Anytime a rock band pushes their sound is worth hearing (unless they get into free-form jazz or polka, of course), and the bulk of Misadventures Of Doomscroller <\/i>makes its case as an invigorating listen that demands attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":34693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10443],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46548","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dawes","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46548"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}