It’s been nearly a decade since Dawes first emerged from Southern California, carrying with them a roots-rock sound that nodded to the past – including the West Coast folksingers and cosmic country-rockers who chased a similar muse during the 1970s – while still pushing forward.
Over the years that followed their North Hills debut, the band evolved and electrified. The grooves deepened. The amplifiers grew louder. 
Once known for their honest approach to classic sounds, Dawes grew into something different: a forward-thinking, boundary-pushing band for the 21st century, willing to follow inspiration wherever it leads.
On the group’s sixth album, Passwords, that inspiration pulls guitarist/singer Taylor Goldsmith, drummer Griffin Goldsmith, bassist Wylie Gelber, and keyboardist Lee Pardini into their most universal, topical territory to date. This is a record about the modern world: the relationships that fill it, the politics that divide it, the small victories and big losses that give it shape. Taylor’s writing is personal at points – the result of his recent engagement, which lends a sense of gravity and self-reflection to album highlights like “Time Flies Either Way” and “I Can’t Love” – but it also zooms out, focusing not on the director himself, but on everything within the lens.
Also catapulting the bandmates into new territory is producer Jonathan Wilson, a long-time friend who produced the band’s first two albums. Years before Dawes toured the globe with artists like Kings of Leon, ELO, Bob Dylan, Mumford & Sons, Conor Oberst, and Jackson Browne, they recorded their first songs in Wilson’s studio, developing their sound along the way. Passwords marks their reunion.
“Part of the DNA of Dawes was shaped by Jonathan, much like your first serious girl-friend dictates how you approach relationships for the rest of your life,” Taylor says. “Those first two Dawes records have a certain essence to them. We were figuring out who we were. When it came time to produce our sixth album, why not go back to the guy who started it all with us?”
The band spent three and a half weeks in the studio, focusing on full-band performances that were tracked live – including Taylor’s vocal takes – rather than multiple rounds of overdubs. The result is a warm, lived-in album that spotlights Dawes’ strength as a live act. At its heart, though, Passwords is also a record rooted in craft and consideration. From “Living In The Future,” which encourages its listener to serve as a bright light during darker times, to “Crack the Case,” a timely call for patience and empathy in an age of political partisanship, Passwords uses its words wisely, unfolding with well-reasoned articulation and pointed punch. Rarely has Dawes created such an appropriate soundtrack for the modern age.
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