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By sacrificing grit, some of the charm that made the debut a success is lost along the way, but the sleeker production is only a minor setback and some of the songs onboard are Deer Tick's best thus far.
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McCauley sounds no less lonely, staring down abandonment and death in gentle waltzes and country-rock rambles.
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Taken for what it is: strong folk leanings, with a sweet country shuffle, delivered with some of the best lyrics of the year, they all make for one brilliant combination.
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Unlike "War Elephant," which resembled an indie band’s stab at country, Born On Flag Day suggests a headlong dive into the canon, with little irony and varying results.
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Mr. McCauley is a committed formalist and a defiant singer; he loves hating himself, and he’s thorough about it. His band mates (Andrew Grant Tobiassen on guitar, Christopher Dale Ryan on bass, Dennis Michael Ryan on drums) smartly give him room to gasp, but maybe he’s got a future without them as a Nashville songwriter.
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From its swampy backwoods grooves to its alpha-male protagonists, Born on Flag Day is a fundamentally, rivetingly nostalgic album.
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Under The RadarBorn On Flag Day is sure to be slightly damned by Deer Tick's earlier success; it's no radical step forward, but McCauley was already on a good path. [Summer 2009, p.74]
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I want to stress one last time, post-catch, that these aren’t terrible songs, nor do they add up to a terrible album. But the net effect is nevertheless one of tedium and disappointment, a partial reminder of "War Elephant's" potential instead of an attempt to realize it.
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As deft revivalists of “country” in all its forms, the four guys in Deer Tick are entitled to wallow. Luckily, though, their second album delivers doses of pop buoyancy.
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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.
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McCauley's time might just have arrived.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 12
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Mixed: 0 out of 12
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Negative: 1 out of 12
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WardT.Jun 26, 2009