Brother Elsey - Brother Elsey (2025) Hi-Res

An impressive debut that suggests the band has what it takes for the long haul. While Brother Elsey may not be a full band of brothers, the name isn’t actually a misnomer since the group is composed mainly of the Stablein siblings: Brady on vocals and guitar, Beau on bass, and Jack on lead guitar, while the unrelated Dalton Thomas takes the role of drummer. If you’re wondering where the Elsey came from, it is actually taken it from the brothers’ great-grandfather Elsey, who himself was a country band frontman described as “[embodying] the genre’s classic cool”; that’s a very lofty statement to have to live up to, but not only do the band do it, but they do it with aplomb.

The moment that Brady’s voice comes through on ‘Passing Through’, his smokey, smooth tone embodies just the effortlessness and ease that comes to mind with a phrase like “classic cool”. “Passing through / Like the whiskey in our veins / Like the downtown eastbound train / I might stop but I never stay,” he sings, ever the troubadour, against the gentle picking of an acoustic guitar. On ‘Bad Advice’, the influence of high octane 00s rock bands like the Foo Fighters bleeds through and creates something anthemic and stadium crowd worthy as Brady growls, “I’ll try anything twice / So give me some bad advice.” ‘Blameless Blue’ has a powerful beat, but that doesn’t take away from the clever lyrics, with wry humour often sneaking through (“Fuck the figure of speech, ‘Was it something I said?’”).

The imprint of producer Drew Long, whose previous work includes Judah & The Lion, can be felt throughout, but it’s especially audible on the swelling folk-rock of songs like ‘Silver Tongue’ and ‘Seeking’, with the latter turning into a raucous jam session at the end. Co-written by Brady and Jack with the eminently talented Madi Diaz, ‘Red Tape’ finds Brady longing to push the boundaries as he deals with anxiety, asserting “I wanna crash my car / I wanna cut my teeth / Go too far / Kill my peace”, which is just the kind of brilliant directness you expect Diaz to have had a part in writing.

‘Bolt Cutter Eyes’ feels every inch heartland rock in the vein of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty as Brady talks of smalltown teenage angst: “He was an actor / Acted his age / Stuck in the dance at 17 and losing the game.” “Please remember me the same way I remember you / You were 22, I was dancing on your toes,” he sings longingly on ‘Virginia’. It’s a song that includes the most quietly moving lyrics on the album, sure to speak to anyone who feels overwhelmed with the ever-moving passing of time: “This party doesn’t feel right / There’s a storm coming in and thirty’s on the other side / I’m afraid that I’m just stuck and getting older here / And in another year I’ll be losing all my light.”

“Everybody’s got questions sometimes / Most people find answers when they’re terrified / Looking through the looking glass this time / Nothing to hide,” Brady muses on ‘Other Side of the End’, a lush piece of hope at a happy ever after that’s not afraid to make use of literary allusions. The mighty ‘Need You Now’ finds him just as desperate as the title suggests (“I need you now / I need you now / I’m facing time and space alone / It’s like my gravity is gone”), while the ferocious ‘Dreamer’ sees him wrestle with a fear of failure (“I’ll take it on the chin again / Push it on the ativan / Something I can’t understand / The truth / That I’m not strong enough to lose”).

“[The album] feels like an arrival, like a ‘here we are’ – but instead of walking through the door, we’re pulling up a seat at the table,” Brady said of how he sees the album. “This record says we’re here, not just to say hi but to stick around a while and make ourselves at home.” With such a strong debut, the band have shown they have exactly what it takes to not just make themselves at home, but also be deserving of a seat as future heads of the table.