Consumer Guide Album

Deer Tick: Born on Flag Day [Partisan, 2009]
Intensified by 24-year-old Rhode Islander John McCauley's old-as-the-hills croak and bodied up by a couple years playing out, the band sound grabs you--these are the rare young men who not only admire roots music but know it carnally. The source of the attraction does arouse suspicion--no songwriter should claim that "not a single word speaks for my rambling around." But the likes of "Little White Lies" (lost love as spirit death), "Straight Into a Storm" (found love as rock and roll life), and "Song About a Man" (grandpa) translate perfectly into their long-diddled dialect. A-