Deer Tick's Top 5 Songs Right Now
EDITOR’S NOTE: No Depression’s new “Top 5” series features a quick playlist in which roots musicians share what they’re listening to at the moment. It gives artists the chance to highlight their contemporaries, as well as classic songs getting them through
Black News 
EDITOR’S NOTE: No Depression’s new “Top 5” series features a quick playlist in which roots musicians share what they’re listening to at the moment. It gives artists the chance to highlight their contemporaries, as well as classic songs getting them through the days. This installment comes from beloved Rhode Island roots-rock band Deer Tick, whose new album, Coin-O-Matic is due out June 5 via ATO.
Deer Tick has always repped its home state well. Founded by singer/guitarist John McCauleyin 2004 in Providence, the band grew to include guitarist/singer Ian O’Neil, drummer/singer Dennis Ryan, and bassist Christopher Ryan by the time of their 2007 debut, War Elephant. In the 2010s, they became staples at the Newport Folk Festival, playing the official three-day-weekend event multiple times (including on Friday this year), as well as organizing unofficial afterparties across downtown Newport with all their musical friends .
The band's ninth studio album, Coin-O-Matic, digs deep into Rhode Island lore — true, exaggerated, and fictionalized. Across its 11 tracks, Coin-O-Matic unearths mob histories with its album title, excavates Irish-Catholic immigrant guilt on songs like “Mary Singletary” and protest on the closing “Candy Cigarettes,” and offers multiple perspectives on crimes and criminals on “Exit Door” and single "ACI" (which stands for Adult Correctional Institutions). Still, Deer Tick channels Bruce Springsteen's 1980s' version of Americana throughout Coin-O-Matic — propulsive, contemplative, and straight to the heart.
Funnily enough, for a band that has basically perfected the three-and-a-half minute rollicking rock song, almost all of the band's picks for this Top 5 stretch longer than six minutes. Check out what Deer Tick is listening to right now.
