Dawes - Stories Don't End

Dawes - Stories Don't End

HUB Records, 2013
9.0/10

A few years ago, when the sounds of Dawes’ sophomore record Nothing is Wrong first reached my ears, it was like a blast from the past. Equal ingredients ’70s Laurel Canyon folk-rock (Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, etc.) and ‘90s roots/alt-country (Whiskeytown, Counting Crows, The Wallflowers), the music this L.A.-based quartet was cultivating hit almost every one of my sonic sweet spots. Somewhere between the soaring, sun-kissed guitar solos, the B3-organ swells, the rich vocal harmonies, and the thoughtful lyricism, there was a band that absolutely could have been a legendary, multi-platinum act three decades earlier, but one that was probably never going to take the radio waves by storm in the here and now. Apparently the band sensed that feeling too: no longer content with simply being really good folk-rock revivalists, Dawes have evolved on their new album—titled Stories Don’t End—to a point where it feels like anything is possible for their future endeavors.

From the moment Stories Don’t End bursts open, with a lush vocal crescendo at the top of “Just Beneath the Surface,” it’s clear that these guys are a different band than they were a few years ago. Once regarded as a terrific live outfit that could never quite capture the electric charge of their performances on record, Dawes have clearly learned to use the studio to their advantage this time around. Credit producer Jacquire King, who covers these 12 tunes in a warmer and more consistent layer of studio sheen than we’ve seen on past albums. With his strong and assured presence behind the boards, the band seems to open up a bit more here, lending album highlights like “Just Beneath the Surface” and “From the Right Angle” a grandiose, arena-ready sensibility, or turning the piano-led first single “From a Window Seat” into a disorienting pop-rock trip. When a frantic guitar solo kicks through the wall on the latter, we know we’re in good hands.

If the opening of the record is strong though, it’s the mid-section where these guys really hit their stride. The chiming guitar chords that open “Most People” herald one of the best and most majestic songs frontman Taylor Goldsmith has ever written. The song builds effortlessly, carried along by an infectious refrain and one of Goldsmith’s finest vocal performances to date. And when the band dials it back down for the outro—a call and response fugue between Taylor and his brother Griffin (the band’s drummer)—you’ll have trouble doing anything but hit “Replay.” The powerful, cathartic build of “Something Common” is even better, beginning on a subtle, restrained note (“All my mornings start with the alarm clock/Every dream gets stopped before the end,” Goldsmith sings at the outset), and building to a shout-it-to-the-rafters conclusion that ranks among the best musical moments I’ve heard all year. “‘Cause all the love and friends and happiness that ever came my way/Revealed themselves the moment I stopped watching,” rolls the final chorus, exploding from the speakers like a pure and fierce confession of the heart. “‘Cause it’s not faith that comes from miracles, but miracles that come from faith/And I’m sure that they’ve got something in common.” Perfect.

The above is just one lyrical gem in a song rife with them, from a band with a better way with words than most working today. Sure, that song is also graced by a gorgeous bed of instrumentation, from cinematic piano chords to emotive electric guitar lines, but it only reaches the next level when you sit back and let the poetic beauty of the words course through you. And that’s the case with the rest of this record as well, from the Springsteenian characters of “Bear Witness” (the granddaughter who's still working at the movies, letting all her boyfriends in for free), to the haunting cliffhanger of “Stories Don’t End” (“They go on and on, just someone stops listening...”), and certainly to the glorious, travel-worn troubadour tribute that is “From the Right Angle” (“I need a cold beer from a dressing room, I need a string of dates back out/I think there are a few of us that still belong out on the road”). If you’ve been looking for a collection of songs to soundtrack the upcoming summer months, songs that could ring from the stage of an evening music festival as fireworks explode in the sky, or songs that could ring through your car as you cruise down a sunburned highway, look no further.

Throughout its 12 tracks, Stories Don’t End strikes a perfect balance between lyrical ingenuity and musical accessibility, between classic rock throwback and modern musical relevance, between instrumental virtuosity and full-bodied, beating-heart passion. Goldsmith’s songs are catchy and comfortable, but they’re never easy. You can imagine something like “From a Window Seat” or “Just Beneath the Surface” making minor waves on college radio—probably more than anything off previous albums—but it’s only with time and intimate attention to the lyrical and musical details that the layers of these songs begin to peel away. I could easily (and happily) waste an evening digging through these songs, obsessing over cryptic lines from Goldsmith and trying to decipher precisely what they mean, or marveling at vintage-sounding musical passages and playing classic albums alongside them in a quest to figure out the band's every influence. Hell, even the numbers that feel more “minor,” like the raucous cover of Blake Mills’ “Hey Lover,” or the rollicking, bass-driven country of “Someone Will,” suggest that spending an afternoon with these guys and their record collections would be any music fan’s dream come true.

But ultimately what matters most is that there are no weak moments here: the songs are great, the album sequencing and pacing is faultless, and the band has never sounded better. And while elements of the ‘70s Laurel Canyon scene are still evident here, they’re surrounded by so many other nuances of folk and rock music’s back pages that they no longer feel like the obvious focus. Stories Don’t End, as a result,is neither a throwback album nor an entirely modern one. It is, quite simply, a Dawes album. It’s the sound of a young band coming into their own unique musical niche and making the record they’ve been reaching for since they first hit the scene in 2009. And if there’s any justice, the record it will be a sounding board for a long and storied career: from all indications, it seems like this band has what it takes to be one of the greats.

John Mayer - Born & Raised

John Mayer - Born & Raised

Columbia Records, 2012

Four and a half stars

Connecticut-born-and-raised singer/songwriter John Mayer may have started out as a teen-pop heartthrob, slinging sugary sweet acoustic jams like "Why Georgia" and "Your Body is a Wonderland" (from his 2001 major label debut album, Room for Squares) toward the radio airwaves, but right from the beginning, it was clear that Mayer was an artist fighting to emerge. It only took five years for him to morph from his initial teen idol image into a guitar god and a blues-rock superstar, delivering one of the best albums of the past decade with 2006's Continuum, and making himself the leader of a tight-knit jazz trio (alongside seasoned vets Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan). In between, he hinted at his move to maturity on the hooky, heartfelt, and criminally underrated Heavier Things (the first album I ever bought with my own money), and afterwards, he made a trip to break-up album territory with 2009's Battle Studies, which blended his blues direction with his pop roots for a maze of deep grooves, infectious hooks, night-time atmospherics, and dizzying guitar solos. Now, Mayer is undergoing another metamorphosis, holding onto the blues, shedding the pop, and moving towards classic folk-rock and alt-country on his long-awaited fifth studio album, Born & Raised, and the result, while not his best record to date, is another great work from one of mainstream music's most ambitious players.

Mayer and guitar-legend B.B. King exchange guitar picks.

Mayer is arguably the greatest guitarist of his generation: he dropped out of the renowned Berklee College of Music after two semesters, but that hasn't stopped him from collaborating with (or convincingly borrowing from) such legends as Eric Clapton and B.B. King. When he lets loose on the electric, the results are chilling and mind-bending (see the stratospheric and emotional solo he laid down on "Edge of Desire," the key track from Battle Studies, or his emulation of Jimi Hendrix's "Bold as Love" on Continuum), but he doesn't do a whole lot of that here. There are a few solos throughout, but on the whole, Born & Raised is a more chilled out, laid back, lyrically driven record. It's also the furthest Mayer has strayed from his roots yet, and I would go as far as to say that there isn't a single outright pop song on the whole disc. First single "Shadow Days" is the most blatantly countrified moment of the entire album, with Mayer's weather-worn vocals and regret-laced lyrics surrounded by a web of instrumentation, from sweeping flourishes of pedal steel to the centerpiece guitar solo, all coming back to a dusky chorus. Elsewhere, "Speak to Me" is an acoustic-based number that recalls his Room For Squares sound, but with a distinctly more folk-driven lilt. Both songs find Mayer rebelling against his fame and image, battling the douchebag reputation that has formed around him in the wake of controversial interviews for the likes of Playboy and Rolling Stone. Interestingly enough, those songs are probably the ones with the most mainstream appeal, as the rest of the disc finds Mayer experimenting with every aspect of his music. Opener "Queen of California" sounds like it came straight out of the '70s folk/rock scene (think Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Neil Young, or America), with twangy harmonies and another vintage guitar solo; the shapeshifting sensibility of "If I Ever Get Around to Living" references every era of Mayer's career, recalling, at different moments, the brassy build-up of "Clarity," the funky grooves of "83," and the blues/jazz feel of Continuum, while still coalescing into something that sounds distinctly new for him; album-highlight "Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967" kicks off with a trumpet intro before launching into a storytelling opus, laden with distant harmonies, church-bound organs, and a consistant snare-drum march, that instantly sits among Mayer's finest displays of songwriting to date. Mayer has never been content to make the same album twice, but he's also never been one to write a record full of sound-alike songs, and his experimental drive here makes for one of the most involving, eclectic, and interesting listens that any album this year has offered thus far.

But even with all the evolution and experimentation represented on Born & Raised, most of the record still has that definitive John Mayer sound. Folk music, with its lyrical structure and evocative orchestration, fits Mayer's songwriting sensibilities like a glove, lending songs like "Age of Worry" (another one of the more mainstream offerings) or "Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey" (a perfect night-time driving song, right down to the pervasive, Ryan Adams-esque harmonica solos) with a distinctly timeless quality. The folkiest groove is left to the campfire confessional that is the title track, a deeply moving and mournfully nostalgic song that seems to encompass 30 or 40 years of the genre into five minutes: Crosby and Nash actually make an appearance here, lending their vocals to the rich harmonies that play throughout, while an explosive B3 organ interlude recalls more modern folk masterworks. And the ghost of Dylan never wanders far as Mayer delves further into his past than ever before, marveling at the swift decay of time, revisiting the places and pieces of his life that he has forgotten, and referencing the powerful personal impact his parent's divorce had on him. It's a lyrical masterclass from a guy who has been responsible for some cringe-worthy moments in his time ("Your body is a wonder, I'll use my hands"), and it comes in the middle of a record full of songs that crackle with maturity and heart. It balances the record's dualities: the past with the present and the experimentation, the alt-country, and the folk with Mayer's more traditional tendencies (see songs like "Something Like Olivia," a bluesy, jazz-trio based song that was recorded almost entirely live, or "Love is a Verb" a slow-burn of a ballad that could have fit easily on any of his last three records). In other words, it's the crux, and the album doesn't quite work without it.

Born & Raised is a record full of contradictions: Mayer ditches his pop music background, but still has some hooks up his sleeve; he goes acoustic for most of the songs, but still has some shining displays of guitar brilliance here and there (just in case anyone ever doubted his talent); he moves in a new direction, making a record that is, overall, nothing like any of the four that have come before it, but there are still countless moments that recall his past; and it's probably not his best work, but after about ten listens, I started feeling the temptation to call it just that. Everything collides on the climactic swell of "A Face to Call Home," the album's proper closer. Acoustic strums mesh with a rousing electric guitar line as Mayer layers numerous vocal parts on top of one another: it's a splendid moment, with such melodic and sonic splendor that it begs to be played at maximum volume. It's also the perfect conclusion to one of the two or three best records I've heard all year, an album that is a stellar step forward for one of today's most intriguing and artistically-driven superstars, and a flawless summer-evening soundtrack. I'd love to hear a record where Mayer really leans on his abilities as a guitarist, but if allowing him to expand his songwriting horizons and explore a wider range of influences sounds as good as Born & Raised does throughout, then I'm on board, all the way. He may have had (relatively) humble beginnings (Squares is still a very solid record), but Mayer is making albums today that will be considered classics 30 or 40 years down the road, and I know I'll be listening to this one, not only for the rest of the summer, not only until it lands somewhere in the upper-echelon of my year-end list, but for as long as I continue to adore music the way I do now: I can hardly give higher praise.