After experiencing heartbreak, the deterioration of his parent’s marriage, and his father’s incarceration, John Joseph McCauley III decided to grow up, go sober, and write something autobiographical and dark with Negativity.
McCauley told Rolling Stone of Negativity, “I kind of consider it War Elephant’s evil twin. It’s a little closer to our earlier records, but any Divine Providence (QRO review) fan should appreciate how we can still keep it pretty rocking.”
The album gets rocking in places, but continues to pull back into the mature, striped-down gravity of the subject manner the band is sharing. Deer Tick recorded Negativity in Portland, Oregon with Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, who pushed them to focus on the essence of the songs instead of getting lost in the party of it all. They did so by seamlessly merging folk intimacy with a new expansiveness that includes horns, strings, organ, piano and a huge, big band feel due to the splendid brass arrangements by Austin, Texas’s Grammy-winning Latin fusion collective, Grupo Fantasma. With Negativity, Deer Tick maintains their alt-country rock vibe, but they also include blues, jazz and psychedelic pop.
“The Rock” opens the album. It’s a slow requiem, a manta with McCauley repeating, “I give the rock to only you,” accompanied only by bells and strings until it swirls into a pleading rage of organ, horns, piano riffs, and hard-hitting bass lines that well to almost epic proportions. It ends with a slow trickle from the piano, reminiscent of tears or the ringing in ones ears after the show is over.
Without knowing about McCauley’s history, and with the traditional meaning of “giving her a rock,” it’s easy to imagine this song as a simple break-up song. A refusal of marriage and the returning of the “rock,” or engagement ring. In traditional McCauley style of twisting words and known phrases of their of their original meaning into something more personal, the meaning of this song is much deeper. “The Rock,” the crack rock in this case, destroyed McCauley’s engagement with Nikki Darling of Those Darlins and almost destroyed Deer Tick all together. The partying cost McCauley his fiancée as he lost himself and almost broke up the band.
Negativity continues the narration of this tumultuous time as “The Rock” leads into “The Curtain”, further describing McCauley’s battle with drugs – the loss of relationships as the addict makes excuses and “crucifies his friends.” It has a ‘90s grunge feel, but it’s eloquently composed. It’s cunning, with a repeating rhythm and strong base-line that poses a beautiful juxtaposition between the catchy rhythms, swirling organ, sugary harmonies and the horrific tragedy of losing yourself to drugs as McCauley personifies the instruments and compares himself to a broken puppeteer.
The rest of the album continues on this autobiographical path, rocking between a person’s greatest fears and the hope that comes when he learns that he has a strength within that is greater that the distractions that life sends his way.
“Just Friends” is lovely ballad, with a delicate piano, horns, and McCauley crooning, “We have the rest of our life / We just have to reach out and steal it.”
After which, the album gives pause before breaking into “The Dreams In The Ditch”, written by Ian O’Neil, the composition of which brings to mind the Happy Days theme song with its sunshine pop vibe. Of course there’s nothing sunny or happy about the lyrics as Ian O’Neil sings of broken dreams and walking wounds. Bells and keys dance around the topic of exploitation as the band hums harmonies underneath.
“Mr. Sticks” (McCauley’s father’s childhood nickname) pays tribute to the love between a father and son that lives regardless of any of life’s circumstances. In this case, the incarceration of his father for tax evasion and the things in life they’ll miss because of it. There’s a slow, swing movement to it as the horns and piano wail their sadness.
Jimmy Russell of The Quick & Easy Boys plays the guitar solo on the jazzy, brassy, groovy, soul number, “Trash”. And boy, can he play a mean guitar. As the guitar seduces and the horns play an anthem, McCauley calls himself a “wasteful savant.” Like the rest of this album, on the surface it seems just another ode to the arduousness of touring, but underneath McCauley alludes to the difficulties of sobriety and the destruction of being a junky.
“Thyme”, written by bassist Christopher Dale Ryan, begins with a psychedelic calling and continues on a trippy train as drummer Dennis Ryan whines of “the end” in a dark doom of organ and base strained by a tortured guitar.
The alt-country/rock of the Deer Tick fans have grown to love shows up in “In Our Time” as McCauley and Vanessa Carlton sing a duet of lasting love. McCauley says he wrote the song about his parent’s relationship, from his father’s perspective. His girlfriend, Carlton sings from his mother’s point of view. Even though his parents went through tough times waiting for his father’s sentence date, they’ve stayed together. The song is cutesy and bobs along, but it works and provides lightheartedness to all the darkness in the album.
In “Pot of Gold”, the characteristic, strained, grizzly vocals of McCauley reveal themselves as he sings of the delusional mindset of the crack addict, that of the broken soul. The music screams around his vocals or his vocals scream around the music, but it maintains their new level of instrumentation without losing itself completely as seemed to happen in Divine Providence.
Negativity has the strength of universal human struggle behind it. It’s timeless and can stand the wear of many listens. In fact, the fullness of it reveals itself only after one listens to it a few times. For Deer Tick, with their new outlook of drinking responsibly and respecting the art of the song, Negativity opens them into the realm of the divine.
