I know the Eighth album by Dawes has already been out for a year, but my review copy arrived fashionably late. From the artwork of Misadventures Of Doomscroller that has the bands name hewn out of the rocks close to the Dawes Glacier in Alaska. This album is almost as super chilled as the glacier ought to be. Dawes are T.Z. and G.W. Goldsmith, L.M. Pardini and W.Q Gelber. The album was produced by Johnathan Wilson at Five Star Studios.
The album opens with Someone Else's Cafe (Doomscroller Tries To Relax) a quite gentle organ led odd pop song, as they describe the weirdo Doomscroller they have in their sights, who is far too old to still be waiting tables in a cafe owned by someone else, although probably a multinational chain. As the squiggly guitar solo accentuates all the odd things they do. The breakdown in the middle has squelchy bass with fusion funk organ before it suddenly sounds like a very relaxed Alessi Brothers.
Comes In Waves feels like the gentlest swell imaginable, these waves are not for surfing on, the restrained percussion with an almost cartoon like bassline accentuate the lyrics about things that Come In Waves.
Everything Is Permanent appears to be as in love with Steely Dan and the mildest parts of The Eagles catalogue as it can be, as the super carefully produced music, allows Taylor to let us know all sorts of things that are now permanent, that used to be ephemeral and temporary.
Ghost In The Machine ups the tempo somewhat, as the funk inspired guitar drives this on, the organ adds all sorts of decoration to help fill out the sound as the episodic lyrics tell quite a tale, the piano solo in this tune is stunning and needs to he heard a few times.
Joke In There Somewhere has a gentle folk intro to this tale of bands playing at the Roxy, the dog being fed, all sorts of other little vignettes that you may be able to joke about. The Outro part of this song is rather downbeat and forlorn.
The album closes with Sound That No One made (Doomscroller Sunrise..) sounds like ambient soundscape recordings, where the microphones were left on and ambient noise was caught on tape, before the bucolic gentle music comes in, to tell us one last tale about the Doomscroller that has one last musical jam that feels perfect to sit Doomscrolling too.
Find out more at https://store.dawestheband.com/products/misadventures-of-doomscroller-limited-edition-preferred-pink-marble-vinyl/ https://dawestheband.com/ https://www.facebook.com/Dawestheband https://found.ee/Dawes_someoneelsescafe?fbclid=IwAR1_5LTEySEmsnHrT0aqFmfG5WlsX9T55vL_p_u_Okuhb00-nFNefBeCqB4
