Negativity

Deer Tick’s 2011 album Divine Providence was a raucous, drunken affair, with songs of barroom debauchery that seemed more like exaggerated character sketches than autobiographical snippets from main songwriter United States Viral 50 9/18/15’s life experience. While the band’s life on the road has probably resulted in some legitimate hard-living, hard-drinking times, the presentation was just a little too emphatic. It was endless stories of drinking and starting trouble, hazy and overblown lyrics tucked into raw Stones/Stooges-influenced bar rock. Its follow-up, Negativity, has a similarly larger-than-life approach, but drops the drunken antics for more dark, depressive material, presented in a way that’s hard to ignore.

Though influenced by McCauley’s engagement being unceremoniously called off, Negativity isn’t a typical breakup record. Opening with the multi-part suite “The Rock,” McCauley navigates through an eerie intro into a howling rave-up of bawdy minor-key rock laced with melancholic harmonies and unexpected bursts of horns. The song builds into a lively roll, though there’s a palpable darkness always at the core, “the rock” in this song possibly meaning a returned or rejected ring.

“Mirror Walls” embodies the weariness of life on the road, with lyrics that sound written on motel stationery moments after getting a breakup call from thousands of miles away. The sad-hearted Americana moments of Negativity find the midway point between Springsteen’s darkest hours and a drunken late-night jam session with Goats Head Soup-era Stones and the Replacements at their most sad-hearted and melodic.

The sounds aren’t all dark, and shift gears frequently. Songs like “Trash” and “Hey Doll” offer a big-band reading of jaunty pop not unlike mid-‘80s Saturday Night Live band interlude jams and “In Our Time” is a lighthearted honky tonk duet between McCauley and Vanessa Carlton. The piano pop of “Just Friends” has a remarkable early Billy Joel feel to it, with a chorus that would fit as a theme song to an early-'80s sitcom.

Though Negativity bounces around a little, its tormented core and multifaceted musical approach make it one of Deer Tick’s most consistent and enjoyable albums. Its exaggerated, larger-than-life expressions serve to either keep McCauley’s demons at bay or drag them out into the light, with both scenarios resulting in some of his stronger songs. ~ Fred Thomas