Lake Street Dive have pushed the possibilities of pop music as a unifying force, not only through their eclectic sound—a boldly original cross-pollination of soul, folk, jazz, classic  pop, and more—the five-piece’s all-embracing ethos has also made them a beloved live band known for building a potent connection among every crowd. In the making of their new album Good Together, vocalist Rachael Price, bassist/background vocalist Bridget Kearney, drummer/background vocalist Mike Calabrese, keyboardist/vocalist Akie Bermiss, and guitarist/background vocalist James Cornelison reinforced the deep sense of purpose behind their output, often turning their attention to the many factors driving us apart today (e.g., unchecked technological growth, culturally imposed isolation, the cult of relentless self-optimization). Born from a mindset they refer to as “joyful rebellion,” Good Together arrives as a body of work both gloriously defiant and primed to inspire unbridled dancing and ecstatic singing-along.

“There’s a lot to be angry about in the world right now, a lot of pain and rage and divisiveness, but it isn’t sustainable to constantly live in that anger—you need something else to keep you going,” says Calabrese. “Joy is a great way to sustain yourself, and we wanted to encourage everyone to stay aware of that. In a way this album is our way of saying, ‘Take your joy very seriously.’”

 In keeping with that spirit of communal uplift, Lake Street Dive’s eighth full-length marks the first time they’ve ever worked together in the earliest and most vulnerable stages of songwriting. Back in early 2023, the band’s members met up at Calabrese’s home studio in Vermont and spent nearly a week generating new songs, catalyzing the process with the help of a 20-sided die (a holdover from the many Zoom-based Dungeons & Dragons matches held by Bermiss and Kearney during lockdown). “The captain of a particular song would roll the die, and the result would decide the chords, the meter, and the tempo for that song,” Kearney explains. “We’d take those elements and jam for a while, go our separate ways and come up with lyrics and melodies, then come back together and workshop everything. It ended up taking us to new places we never would’ve gotten to otherwise, in terms of things like harmony and tempo and groove.” Along with expanding their musical palette and expressive range, that highly collaborative approach helped the band reach a new level of intimacy. “In the past we’d written pieces of songs and shared them with each other and built them up from there, but we always had the space to listen and reflect in total privacy,” says Price. “At first it was terrifying to write together in the same room, but as soon as we got started it felt so fun. We very quickly realized, ‘Oh, we need to do this again and again.’”

All throughout Good Together, Lake Street Dive reveal the immense expanse of their musicality and expressive imagination. On “Better Not Tell You,” for instance, the band presents a ’70s-funk-inspired dance track Bermiss originally penned from the perspective of the three witches in Macbeth, while “Far Gone” serves up a bouncy piece of psych-rock exploring what Price sums up as “this existential crisis where we’re all realizing we’re addicted to technology before we even got a chance to take a step back from it.” Closing out the album with the dreamlike grandeur of “Set Sail (Prometheus & Eros)”—a Bermiss-Price duet featuring a spellbinding string arrangement from Rob Moose (The National, St. Vincent, Bon Iver)—Lake Street Dive also endlessly tap into the palpable camaraderie that’s fueled the band since they formed in Boston back in 2004.

Lake Street Dive continue to fully embody the effusive sense of togetherness and mutual care embraced throughout Good Together. “At this point our tastes in music differ more than they ever have, but we’re still able to bring all those influences together with a real love and respect for the diversity within the band,” says Price. “I think the main thing that’s kept us going over the years is that very strong foundation of friendship—everyone has a voice, everyone gets heard, and we’re all really careful about looking out for each other’s happiness.”