Premiere: Brother Oliver’s key strokes: Command Shift EP

L-R: George Sweet, Andrew Oliver, Stephen Oliver and Devin Taylor; Photo: Dan Johnson

Brother Oliver is, in fact, two brothers. Psychedelic folk/rockers Andrew & Stephen Oliver were born in Greenville, MI and relocated to Greenville, SC. What are the odds? Their 2019 album Well, Hell garnered heavy attention, the band was named “2019 Artist of the Year” by the Upstate Music Awards, and the album’s release day was officially proclaimed as “Brother Oliver Day” by the mayor of Greenville, South Carolina—these guys are good at beating the odds.

Brother Oliver is back with their substantive Command Shift EP, addressing issues like the death of entertainment, social media discourse, and simply finding a way to survive it all. The instrumentation here contains classic Brother Oliver—electric mandolin power solos and catchy choruses—but what’s new here is the synth work found on every track. Their explorative approach to music has landed them on bills alongside the Steve Miller Band, Father John Misty, SUSTO, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, among others.

Guitarist and vocalist Andrew Oliver talked a bit about “Who Shot the Music?” with Elmore: “This track is a little bit about that feeling of clockwork vs intention. As a band, we were reaching a point last year that we were so much in the habit of the ‘write, record, perform’ cycle that it started to feel more like a machine than human. And with as much success as we were seeing, there was still not much left to go around at the end of each day a lot of times. But that’s the tug-of-war with this business. You keep your intentions in line, and the spirit of the matter will resolve it. In a year that we basically had decided to take off, we recorded this song and EP because we wanted to and felt compelled to. And that makes all the difference.”