Two’s company, but three’s a crowd, especially when the third is the devil.
“Spirits” is the first new album in seven years by the genre-bending Americana band the Devil Makes Three, their long-awaited follow-up to the gritty “Chains of Freedom” in 2018. That’s one full Saturn cycle between releases, and for lead singer and songwriter Peter Bernhard it turned out to be a period of intense self-reflection and transformation. The thirteen tracks reflect that period, delving into such meaty topics as addiction, division and grief, but as always with the California band, the lyrics are witty and you can dance to it.
The opener ‘Lights on Me’ immediately establishes the album’s character—its tone, definitely, as well as its broad embrace of death and the possibility of reincarnation. When the light shines down you see / And all the breath in this body leaves / This ain’t the last light I will lead / I will be free.
The title track continues the theme of life and death. “You are being faced with the choices of your past,” Bernhard explained. “It pulls on the thin veil between life and death, past and future, chance and fate.
It’s worth the price of whatever media you pay for to experience the melodrama of ‘Ghosts Are Weak,’ a song that would have been perfect for the first season of the anthology series “American Horror Stories.” The chorus begins with Bernhard’s panegyric of Here’s to good news / So long, so long / I know I’m gonna miss you / But I’m glad that you’re gone.
There’s the Merle Haggard-ish shuffle of ‘Half as High,’ where everything in America has doubled in price except pay stubs, which have stayed the same. We get a further examination of the country’s murky underbelly in ‘The Dark Gets the Best of You.’ Online it’s the very loudest voices who get the attention. Clickbait is just a synonym for violence. This is the type of upbeat song with a dark, chewy center that Roger Miller used to do so well.
Record labels, promoters, streamers and music-lovers feel compelled to categorize artists, and the Devil Makes Three is often lumped into a homogenous mixture of old-time, blues, folk and rockabilly. This is a natural assumption for what started out as a neo-primitive string band when Bernhard and Cooper McBean left Brattleboro, Vermont behind for California. In 2001, they added Lucia Turino on upright bass and christened their trio with a lyric from a traditional folk song that was on the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack. “When we started, it was difficult to get a show,” Bernhard recalled. But with some patience, steady touring and recording they found themselves on a similar curve as Trampled By Turtles, Old Crow Medicine Show and other bands of that ilk, though maybe without so much jam.
Nearly a quarter century later, “Spirit” marks a return to the band’s stripped-back roots while digging into deeper, more personal issues. “There’s a theme of ghosts and death running through this album,” acknowledges Bernhard, who lost his mother, brother, and closest childhood friend while making the record. He adds, “The world’s in a strange place right now. A lot of the songs on this record come from that place – trying to make sense of it all, whether it’s dealing with loss, addiction, or the way people are more divided than ever. But at the end of the day, this band has always been about celebrating resilience. We’ve always found a way to push through, and wanted to reflect that in this album.”
One of those concurrent themes has to do with drugs and addiction, devils that are no strangers to creative types. It ain’t no sin to think your skin is covered up in bugs / Oh, my God, I love doing drugs. This song got its start while Bernhard was driving from Washington state to Texas and going a little stir crazy. It’s a serious bummer topic, which is further pursued in ‘Poison Well,’ asking the question can you still be creative when not doing drugs. “Do you have to go to that well,” Bernhard questions, “ and will someone pull on the rope to raise you up.”
There is hardly a misstep in the batch of songs cooked up for ‘Spirit,” from the ‘70s FM chug of ‘The Devil Wins’ to the warmth of Neil Young’s “Harvest” on ‘Holding On.’ Boaz Vilozny, a former drummer with DMT and a regular contributor to their repertoire, wrote the outline for the song and Bernhard finished the redemptive closer.
In the time since their previous album, Torino retired and MorganEve Swain has taken her spot on upright bass and vocals. Stefan Amidon served as a fourth for the trio on drums and banjo. McBean contributed two songs, the aforementioned ‘I Love Drugs’ and ‘Hard Times,’ which supposedly began with a line about pickles, and with some help from producer Ted Hutt became a song that bemoans the rich getting richer and the poor getting …. well, pickles.
Their music remains a place where tales of hardship are met with wry humor and where the bad news is often packaged in an upbeat rhythm as kindred spirits make ready to dance away the troubles of the day. This is unrelenting music made by a group that’s paid their dues and understands its musical heritage. Sure, Devil Makes Three relies on old tricks, but “Spirit” gives them new life.
