Album Review – The Devil Makes Three’s “Spirits”

#590 (Underground Country) on the Country DDS.

Tales are told about this dark and unusual three-piece string band that sprang out of Santa Cruz, California in the early aughts, and started tearing up and down the West Coast, and eventually across the United States, setting audiences on fire way before such things were popularized by the Mumford & Sons of the world. Their name was The Devil Makes Three, and the pulsating rhythms and infectious lyrics awakened something carnal and real in hungry audiences looking for escape from the silicon world.

The Devil Makes Three was one of the very first post-punk roots bands that understood that the older you sounded, the more punk you were being, and so did their rabid audiences. Without the aid of conventional radio or major record labels, they began to pack big venues and headline festivals, holding their own right beside metal bands and bluegrass legends alike when thrown on such mixed bills.

Now The Devil Makes Three are nothing short of legends, even if the latest generation has fallen unfamiliar with their work. As hot as this band has burned in their various eras—including frontman Pete Bernhard releasing solo records—they’ve also pulled disappearing acts over the years, and sometimes come across as bored with their own sound. But their absence made the love grow stronger in many fans, and it has kept the energy and interest within the band fresh whenever they emerge from hibernation.

It’s been seven years since The Devil Makes Three haunted the studio and released an album. Childhood friends Pete Bernhard and Cooper McBean are now joined on upright bass by MorganEve Swain as opposed to Lucia Turino who was with them for almost 20 years. But Spirits is very much a return to vintage Devil Makes Three, with the songs sitting down in deep and infectious plucking grooves, and the the verses hitting on classic themes.

The Devil Makes Three is blue collar music for a bleak world bifurcated between the have’s and have not’s. The title of this album isn’t just a double entendre. It’s tripled, or perhaps even quadrupled as the songs delve into the themes of spirituality, reincarnation of the spirit, disillusions with alcohol spirits and drugs, and the spirit that rises in us all to persevere, even amidst the hardest of times.

Just like roots music became a place for punks to escape and grow as they became older, so has sobriety, or at least, moderation. This comes up regularly in the 13 tracks of Spirits, especially in “Half As High” and “I Love Doing Drugs.” The tough financial times among inflation and cost of living hikes is also broached commonly, including in the song “Hard Times,” while the polarization of society is addressed in “Divide and Conquer.”

All of it is served in The Devil Makes Three’s distinctive sound that is part Appalachian roots, part ragtime, part electric to give the music some bite, and all served with a darkness and snarl from their underlying punk influences. It’s never pretty. It’s a feral, tattooed, and pierced. But it’s nonetheless inspiring from its dogged persistence.

The key to DM3 has always been their simplicity. They’ve never been the most adept of musicians—or at least, never been willing to show it. Their songwriting was always good, but never exceptional or intricate. They never featured the breakneck tempo or wild energy of some other punk-gone-country bands. But they’re real, and gutsy, and they inspired countless others to discover the brutal honesty and genuineness of roots music. That’s what they bring back to life in Spirits.

8/10

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