On Friday Providence’s Deer Tick will release their new album, Coin-O-Matic. The LP’s 11 tracks shine light on a lesser-known side of the American story, which is the hidden histories of the band’s home state of Rhode Island, where the struggles of working-class families have long existed alongside the shadow of the mafia underworld. Drawn to that uneasy intersection, singer/guitarist John McCauley, guitarist/singer Ian O’Neil, drummer/singer Dennis Ryan and bassist Christopher Ryan crafted a collection of songs steeped in desperation, grief, redemption, and resilience.
And today, the band has shared the final single ahead of the release, Coin-O-Matic opener “Dog Years”, which is quietly devastating song that begins in folky intimacy before building to a sorrowful catharsis. In dreaming up the storyline, McCauley looked back on an assisted-living facility near his childhood home, where his own grandfather spent the final years of his life. “The main character of ‘Dog Years’ is based on the guys I used to watch playing chess outside that building or hanging out at the bus stop, smoking cigarettes and shooting the shit,” says McCauley. “I imagined an older gentleman losing his partner and that loss accelerating his aging—almost like he was doing seven years of damage with every passing year.”
Photo Credit: Kalyn Oyer
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