Anticipation continues to build for the upcoming Deer Tick album. The Rhode Island outfit has released yet another stream, this time of country tearjerker “Just Friends”. Emotionally vulnerable readers should probably move on – melancholy guitars and even more melancholy vocals below.

It’s one of those songs that somehow makes everything taste a little bit like whiskey. Cheap whiskey, likely mixed with tears. Deer Tick has put their spin on an ancient country music trope and made a breakup song. Frontman John McCauley wrote it after an awkward encounter with his ex-fiancee. Says McCauley: “I went home drunk and alone and wrote this song about that night a couple weeks later.” Cheery stuff.

Not that it’s all that surprising, it’s off an album named Negativity for starts. Negativity, the band’s fifth studio album, is due out September 24th. Previously released material includes two music videos – “The Dream’s in the Ditch”, and confessional anthem “The Rock” with accompanying black-and-white video featuring McCauley trying really hard to make eye contact with you. “Just Friends” fits nicely into what we’ve seen so far, check out the song below.