It's Been a While; Deer Tick

Busy all the time at the moment. However, I need to comment on the brilliance of the band Deer Tick. I reviewed their album The Black Dirt Sessions a few months back, and was very positive, and I've since delved into their back catalogue a little. The singer has a gorgeously scratchy, intense voice, which really sets them apart from other American folk/indie bands of the moment.



I'm in love with Deer Tick's lyrics. Recurring religious and regal themes I can take or leave, but sometimes the singer speaks with such elegance and eloquence that the result is irresistible. "Looks like I relied too hard on a dream, so tell me girl, where have you really been?... I built a kingdom on second chances" he growls in 'Piece by Piece and Frame by Frame'. Enticingly simple words that draw a picture, rasped in his husky tones, over well-played indie-ish acoustic guitar or heavy bass...

It's lovely. They are pensive but often upbeat too, and I'm going though a phase of really liking them. Deer Tick: check them out. I've put a few favourites below.

Getting into Bright Eyes

Few artists have music so deeply engrained into their being that they can live their whole lives without being lost for chords. Bright Eyes certainly seems that way, putting out music since he was 13, and still going now, almost 17 years later. His music has ranged from bluesy American folk to hardcore punk-rock, but no matter what he was playing, he never let his guitar gather dust.



I took 2007's Cassadaga out of the library a few months ago and never really got into it. On it was the brilliant 'Hot Knives', and a few other decent tracks, but it was a bit too obvious, polished. Only on listening to 2002 album Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground have I realised that polish was not all Conor Oberst had to offer.

I'm not a clued-up fan. Ask any one of his thousands of obsessives and you could argue over which is his best project, album, song, lyric. All I know is that 'Lover I Don't Have to Love' took me by the heart the moment I heard it, and the whole albums genuine, open lyrics and sketchy but honest atmosphere are definitely an example of how good Bright Eyes can be. I'll be trying to become that clued-up fan over the next few months, I think.