Part road songs, part heartbreakers and part barnburners, the rowdy and rootsy trio The Devil Makes Three’s fourth full-length studio album, I’m A Stranger Here, is currently being exclusively streamed in its entirety by Paste Magazine. The record was produced by Buddy Miller and will be released on October 29 on New West Records.
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/av/2013/10/album-stream-the-devil-makes-three—im-a-stranger.html
Frontman Pete Bernhard describes I’m A Stranger Here, recorded at Dan Auberbach’s (The Black Keys) Easy Eye Sound in Nashville, as a “very dark record thematically, lyrically and sonically.” The 10-track collection features the drummer-less acoustic threesome of singer/guitarist Bernhard, guitarist/banjoist Cooper McBean and stand up bassist Lucia Turino coloring their songs with an expanded sonic palette – percussion, strings, electric guitar, fiddle, vibes and a variety of horns are used to powerful effect.
Rolling Stone initially premiered the album’s first single, “Stranger,” and said it “blends raw folk, punk-tinged Southern blues and even amphetamine-fueled jazz.”
TDM3’s sound is inspired as much by mountain music as by Preservation Hall jazz. “We bend genres pretty hard,” Bernhard says. That sound has won accolades from critics across the board, with NPRdescribing the trio as “acoustic roots music with a relentless beat in mind at all times,” going on to praise their “whiskey-drenched, ramshackle fury,” and “fiendish intensity.”
I’m A Stranger Here was inspired by the bands travels and travails so far, a journey that has lead them down numerous roads since they first left their picturesque rural hometown of Brattleboro, VT. While most bands are propelled from behind by a drummer, TDM3 builds exuberant rhythms from the inside out, wrapping finger-picked strings and upsurging harmonies around chugging acoustic guitar and bass, plying an ever-growing audience onto its feet to jump, shake and waltz.
Bernhard wrote more than 20 songs for the album and turned them over to producer Buddy Miller, who gravitated toward the darker material but ensured that the recording was lit up by the band’s innate ebullience.
Since releasing their first album in 2002, TDM3 has released a steady stream of well-received studio LPs as well as two live albums that have captured their deft musicianship and the rollicking and ragged intensity of their epic, sweat-soaked performances they are so beloved for. They have garnered ardent fans the old school way by relentlessly touring North America and just this summer played with Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell, Willie Nelson, Trampled By Turtles and Yonder Mountain String Band. They are also regulars on the festival circuit and veterans at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Treasure Island, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Pickathon and many others. Described by Relix as “taking the primitive components of American folk music and assembling them into post-apocalyptic nostalgia,” the trio brings forth a genuine approach to acoustic music that is deeply steeped in rhythm but is simultaneously vintage and new.
THE DEVIL MAKES THREE ON TOUR
October 30 – Boulder, CO @ E Town Hall
October 31 – Colorado Springs, CO @ The Black Sheep
November 1 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
November 2 – Aspen, CO @ Belly Up Aspen
November 5 – Columbia, MO @ The Blue Note
November 6 – Iowa City, IA @ Blue Moose Tap House
November 7 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
November 8 – Chicago, IL @ Metro
November 9 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew’s Hall
November 10 – Bloomington, IN @ Bluebird Nightclub
November 12 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
November 13 – Morgantown, WV @ Metropolitan Theatre
November 14 – Millvale, PA @ Mr. Small’s Theatre
November 15 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
November 16 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of the Living Arts
November 17 – Charlottesvile, VA @ Jefferson Theatre
November 19 – Baltimore, MD @ 8 x 10 Club
November 21 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
November 22 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues
November 23 – Portland, ME @ State Theatre
November 24 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Ballroom
December 27 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
December 28 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
December 30 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
December 31 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
For up to date tour information visit thedevilmakesthree.com
