Pitchfork

There is plenty about Deer Tick's debut album, War Elephant, to suggest that frontman John McCauley has seen more than his 21 birthdays. The gruff pipes, languid alt-country arrangements, and tears-in-his-beers lyrics-- "Maybe I'll see better days/ But I'm not so sure I will," just two songs into his debut album-- all point towards a sagely source. Consider that McCauley has spent the previous two years touring, has collaborated with Jason Anderson and Jana Hunter, and now has his own band; it's tough to fathom just what makes him unsure of better days. This isn't to needlessly drag Deer Tick into the endless pissing contest that is authenticity in country music, just to note that McCauley is a bit of an old hound, a lithe songwriter with a black lung and a bad liver. On War Elephant, he sets his old ways against a meld of country and alt-rock signifiers, one appropriate for his age but only occasionally a fit for his songwriting.

Though ostensibly an alt-country act, no amount of Telecaster bends or fiddle breaks are going to disguise Deer Tick's indie-rock core: McCauley, in both composition and performance, owes more to the Shins, Modest Mouse, and early Bright Eyes than he does even to halfway country acts like Uncle Tupelo. Overdrive pedals get stomped and larynxes strained, and War Elephant is probably the better for it: when McCauley crushes too hard on traditional tunes-- "Spend the Night" mimics Hank Williams' "Hey, Good Lookin'"-- he acquires an unpleasant kid brother-ness. McCauley works best in abbreviated stretches, and about half of War Elephant stays under the three-minute mark. His voice is a nasal, corroded squeak that finds a pleasant middle ground between gargling water and Eric Bachmann on the heels of a good melody.

This happens frequently enough throughout the first half of the album. The opening trio of "Ashamed", "Art Isn't Real (City of Sin)", and "Standing at the Threshold" roll amicably, McCauley's angst still couched in gallows humor and clever phrasing. "There's gotta be some old recipe/ 'Cause I gotta get drunk I gotta forget about some things", he sings jauntily on "Art Isn't Real (City of Sin)". "These Old Shoes" is sort of adorable, marrying all manner of dilapidated transports-- trains, cars, kicks-- to yelping promises, a shuffling snare beat, and buoyant electric piano. "Dirty Dishes" and "Long Time" are at worst grungy heartbreaks worthy of Wednesday night Fox teen-dramas. Unfortunately, McCauley too often abandons his slim songcraft in favor of bloated alt-rockisms and hammy genre exercises. "Sink or Swim" and, most egregiously, "Christ Jesus" plod on towards anguished, big-rock finishes, and McCauley has neither the fire nor the legs to carry them.

"What Kind of Fool Am I" closes War Elephant sourly, a paean to 1950s vocal balladry whose piercing string arrangement can't mask McCauley's ruinous Tony Bennett impression. It's a fitting end, one that showcases McCauley's pining for experience he doesn't have into the teeth of a modern musical lineage, a contrast that takes more than his cask-aged lyrics to reconcile. The resultant head-butting makes it pretty easy to figure what kind of fool McCauley is: a young one, of course.