Providence’s Deer Tick have announced the 5th June release of their ninth studio album, Coin-O-Matic, via ATO. The LP is said to cast a bright light on a little-known facet of the American mythos: the hidden histories of the band’s home state of Rhode Island, where the everyday dramas of working-class families long collided with the menace of the mafia underworld. As they tapped into their fascination with that strange duality, singer/guitarist John McCauley, guitarist/singer Ian O’Neil, drummer/singer Dennis Ryan, and bassist Christopher Ryan say they have assembled a batch of songs exploring desperation, grief, redemption, and resilience.
The album is deeply informed by the singular experience of growing up Irish-Catholic. That is exemplified by the album’s lead single, Mary Singletary, which is out now. It tells a tender yet irreverent tale of interfaith teenage lust. “Most of the stories on the album are from my parents’ generation and the generation before that, when the idea of a Catholic and a Protestant getting together was very scandalous,” says McCauley. “With that song in particular, I liked the idea of writing about Catholic guilt and pre-marital sex and adding in a little bit of Looney Tunes-style violence—sometimes as a young Catholic boy, I did imagine a vengeful God cutting me down in a cartoonish kind of way.” The single is accompanied by a video directed by Colin Devin Moore, which you can catch below. The album can be preordered here.
The follow-up to Emotional Contracts, Coin-O-Matic takes its title from a cigarette-vending-machine company that served as the headquarters of Raymond Patriarca, a legendary mobster who ran one of the most ruthless crime families in U.S. history. “If you grew up in Rhode Island years ago, you’d see all these mobsters on the news and then run into them at a restaurant on Federal Hill,” says McCauley, referring to Providence’s version of Little Italy. “They were criminals but also very colorful characters, and I wanted the album to partly reflect a certain nostalgia for that kind of seediness”.
Recorded at Deer Tick’s home studio, the disc marks their first self-produced album in their two-decade-plus lifespan, during which they’ve enlisted A-list producers like Dave Fridmann ( The Flaming Lips and Spoon). “At first it was daunting not to have that extra ear in the studio, but it felt like the right time to peel off the Band-Aid and fully trust ourselves,” says O’Neil. “Since we were working in our own space and there weren’t any limitations on time, we had the freedom to take these four-guys-in-a-room rock songs and experiment with different ways of decorating them.” It also features guest musicians like Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin (on baritone saxophone) and former Deer Tick member Rob Crowell (on organ). “We’ve never been so comfortable making a record, and I think you can feel that in the performances,” says Dennis, who engineered the LP. “We weren’t beholden to anyone else’s idea of what Deer Tick sounds like, and because of that, this album feels like an unfettered capturing of who we are as a band.”
“I think there’s something universal in stories of regret and loss and poor decisions, even if they’re told through the lens of all the odd characters in this little state of ours,” O’Neil points out. “One of the reasons I wanted us to make this album is that I think Rhode Island deserves to be a contender for a place that people sing about,” McCauley adds. “Sonically, there’s nothing country about it, but to me it almost feels like a country record set in an urban environment—there’s definitely some outlaws in there. I hope that people see themselves in it, and that they understand a little more about the place that we come from.”
COIN-O-MATIC tracklisting:
1. Dog Years
2. Mary Singletary
3. Endless Loop
4. Sweetest Thing
5. ACI
6. Everything Born
7. Eyelid
8. I Am an Island
9. 507 Smith
10. Exit Door
11. Candy Cigarettes
