Deer Tick: The Black Dirt Sessions

Label: Partisan

When I saw the title of the new Deer Tick album it kinda pissed me off, cause I was sure the band didn't know the super-cool Black Dirt Studios in upstate New York (from whence many awesome underground/psych/roots records have come). I am currently eating my shoe because that is precisely why the Rhode Island quintet named its third album The Black Dirt Sessions, and with the help of house producer Jason Meagher, they've turned out their best work yet. The group's casually instinctive mix of folk, country and pop songwriting was already in place, but this is the band's best batch of songs by a country mile, now infused with full-on American-style haunt: "Piece by Piece and Frame by Frame" finds frontman John McCauley narrating a relationship breakdown in beautifully precise detail, sometimes emoting like Jeff Mangum, while a tune like "Twenty Miles" could (and should) catapult Deer Tick into the highest echelons of American bands playing American music. If it doesn't, McCauley's gorgeous duet with guest Elizabeth Rodgers Isenberg on "The Sad Sun" ought to. The aforementioned songs all appear on the first half of this record; I'd need a lot more space to get into songs like "Blood Moon," "Hand in My Hand" and the stunning closer "Christ Jesus." Highly recommended for fans of Americana! (M.L. Thrope)