Brothers Osborne Balance Rough And Smooth On Self-Titled Fourth Album

Brothers Osborne have delivered what Rolling Stone describes as “a nice balance of rough and smooth” on their new, self-titled, fourth studio album, newly available on EMI Records Nashville.

The new set is the brothers’ first with producer Mike Elizondo (Keith Urban, Turnstile, Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow) after three albums with Jay Joyce, the studio presence who John and TJ say “helped make us what we are today.” For the new project, the duo gave Elizondo the freedom to curate his own band of studio musicians, including Paul McCartney’s drummer Abe Laboriel Jr.

The album’s lead-off track “Who Says You Can’t Have Everything” was co-written by the brothers with Casey Beathard, and has TJ singing “Got the one I love, blue sky above, grass growing underneath my feet.” John and TJ co-wrote every song on the record.

“We made a conscious decision very early on to make a hard turn into territories where we’ve never been before,” says John Osborne. “Mike Elizondo is an avid instrument collector, specifically of guitar pedals and synthesizers, and we wanted to incorporate that. The song that bridges the gap between this album and our last is ‘Younger Me,’ which was very synth heavy. That’s the tie that binds Skeletons and the new album.”

Adds TJ: “This record has the widest spectrum of music we’ve ever done, but it’s also oddly lasered in on what it is that we do. You can really hear John and me and the characteristics that make us Brothers Osborne more than ever before.”

The album is the group’s first since TJ Osborne came out as gay and John revealed mental health issues. John told Billboard: “It’s a new start in that we’re trying new things, trying new sounds — but it’s also a late start that between recording our last album, my brother and I have disclosed a lot of personal things. I feel like it gave us the courage to lean further into ourselves and not play it safe.”

Buy or stream Brothers Osborne.