Led by Colombian-American frontwoman Dominque Gomez, Los Angeles-based country band Dominique and the Diamonds can trace their origins back to last year: the band came together on a whim, after Gomez was asked to perform a country set at the local summertime concert series, The Grand Ole Echo. 

Friends from cosmic country outfit Caravan 222 and rock band Triptides were asked to perform as a backing band for Gomez and over the course of the year gained buzz locally for a sound that seemingly channels Linda Ronstadt, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Townes Van Zandt and the Laurel Canyon sound — but with a contemporary feel. 

The Los Angeles-based country outfit’s Glenn Brigman-produced debut EP, For a Fool is slated for a June 13, 2025 release. Recorded using a mix of analog and digital equipment in Brigman’s Crestline, CA-based studio, For a Fool EP channels the golden age of classic country with the material touching upon tried-and-true themes of romance, lonesomeness, revenge, drunken playfulness while anchored around the old school song-as-story. And the material sees the band weaving the experiences of the contemporary world, too. 

“I write country music and love to sing country songs, but I’ve always associated myself with the Colombian half of my identity more than the white side. My Dad and his immediate family immigrated to the US from Colombia in 1966 and they’d endured so much struggle in the process,” Dominique and the Diamonds’ Dominque Gomez says. “Then, you have my Mom’s side who were small town farmers in Minnesota and Southern trailer park girls. When you look at me, you see a brown girl, and I fucking love that. And when I was younger, I felt like I was forced to fit into a category, but I was too white to be Latina and too Latina to be white. It’s a beautiful thing to have the wisdom now to embrace both and just be me.”

Last month, I wrote about “For a Fool,” a Patsy Cline-styled ballad of heartbreak, despair and uneasy acceptance anchored around some gorgeous pedal steel and Gomez’s Linda Ronstadt-like vocal. Inspired by the modern “situationship” phenomenon and Gomez’s experiences dating in Los Angeles, the song describes a bitterly common scenario: dealing with a love interest you really dig, who’s an unserious time waster that’s playing with your heart and emotions. And while the song’s narrator is heartbroken, she clearly recognizes her time and her worth, offering a bit of wisdom for anyone who encounters this sort of lover — leave that fool alone before you get played for a fool. 

For a Fool‘s second and latest single “Lovely Dream” is a playful, Hank WIlliams-like bit of honky tonk, anchored around an oompah-like groove and a gorgeous and expressive pedal steel solo that’s simultaneously lush and spacious enough for Gomez’s big, Linda Ronstadt-like delivery.

The song’s buoyant nature is deceptive, because at its core, is a narrator waxing nostalgically on the honeymoon phase of a relationship from the perspective of a heartbroken narrator looking back at the whole experience with some bittersweet — and perhaps just bitter — retrospect.

Sometimes the end of a relationship can make you feel as though you had been walking around with a mix of rose colored glasses, wool, blind hope and naiveté. The retrospect at the core of the song gives that heartache and the feeling of being a made a fool a proper sense of perspective, and hopefully the understanding that you won’t be fooled again.

“’Lovely Dream’ is a silly little love song that I had written for an ex back in 2018, so it’s been sitting in the archives for awhile [sic]. The words ‘lovely dream’ were just the best way to describe the beginning of that relationship,” Dominque and the Diamond’s Dominque Gomez explains. “Emphasis on the beginning… Ha! I was in my early to mid twenties at that time; young, naive and only saw through rose colored glasses. I tie nature into my songwriting at any chance I can get. The relationship to me, at the time, was as harmonious as a budding meadow in the springtime— full of new life, color and energy just waiting to be embraced by the sun.”

Directed by Hamilton Boyce, the accompanying video for “Lovely Dream” features Dominque Gomez in the brush and foothills, before sitting down for a makeup session to make her done up like an old-fashioned rodeo clown.