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Album Review

Born on Flag Day

Deer Tick
Born on Flag Day

[Partisan; 2009]

5.3

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The strangest but most fortuitous moment of Deer Tick's young career occurred recently when the band was chosen by "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams as the first interview subject of his fledgling web-only music-spotlight feature, "BriTunes". Offering a humbling reminder of how awkward any of us can be when we step outside our comfort zones, Williams seemed infinitely more stilted and out-of-sorts querying four scruffily reticent young roots-rockers than he does when sitting down with the leader of the free world.

As for Deer Tick, the profile could very well be a major boon, not simply because of Williams' fame and visibility, but even more because of his age and the assumed demographic of his target audience. The band may be made up of young dudes (most notably 23-year-old frontman Joseph McCauley III), but they make a very classicist-friendly brand of rock that would seem likely to appeal to the 35-54 set. But trust me when I say that my ambivalence towards Deer Tick's sophomore release, Born on Flag Day, has nothing to do with me being a slave to the flavor of the week, not when I was so enthralled earlier this year with another recent "BriTunes" pick, Jason Isbell. Deer Tick's primary shortcoming is that the band evokes authentically gutty music from the past without noticeably inserting much of themselves into the equation, achieving superficial mimesis and comforting recognition while failing to put their own stamp on their creations.

In fairness, one aspect of Deer Tick's sound does feel singular, though not in a very positive way. McCauley's voice is a nasally whine undercut with a harsh, grating buzz-- you can almost visualize it emerging from his mouth with actual serrated edges. On bare-bones tracks "Song About a Man" and "Friday XIII", the effect is almost painful, and hence Deer Tick are at their best when the band is competing for decibels with their vocalist, in the orchestral swells of "Smith Hill" or the stumbling sock-hop shimmy of the album-opening "Easy".

Even then, the effect rarely rises above revivalism, though Deer Tick do at least have the good sense and taste to evoke a fairly healthy range of influences-- country-rock may be the default mode here thanks to the bevy of Southern-leaning grooves and roadhouse-poet lyrics like, "Tonight I see my sweetheart/ I've got a 50 dollar bill," and "Drank away all the things I could provide." But there are almost as many 1960s pop turns here as well, from the Brit Invasion shuffle the band locks into near the end of "Little White Lies" to the Byrdsian countermelodies of "Hell on Earth".

Only when Deer Tick really tunnel into one specific sound or style do they flirt with purely unappealing shtick, particularly the barroom greaser rave-up "Straight Into a Storm" and McCauley's unsuccessful bid for John Prine-ish wryness on "Friday XIII". And then Born on Flag Day ends with probably the most egregious classicist move of all, the tried-and-true hidden track-- and it's a lo-fi cover of "Good Night, Irene"! You can even hear bottles clanking and girls chatting in the background, reminding us that yes, this is just a totally laid-back, spontaneous moment of dudes sitting around strumming their acoustics. Such familiar moves might be tolerable if the tunes on Born on Flag Day were more fun, but "dutiful" is often the most applicable adjective here.

— Joshua Love, June 22, 2009


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