bilgewater // brown bird

1&2: Fingers to the Bone, 3: Chairkickers, 4&5: Bilgewater, all by Brown Bird

Album Review: The Devil Makes Three - Spirits (Deluxe Edition)

As deluxe releases go, the Devil Makes Three’s Spirits is light in its bolstering, boasting just one new track. But the band’s live version of Brown Bird’s “Fingers to the Bone” is a heavy lift, as fiddler Lightning Luke joins the core trio of Cooper McBean (banjo), Pete Bernhard (guitar) and bassist MorganEve Swain for the joyful rendition with just enough crowd noise to replicate the raucous atmosphere of a TDM3 gig.

The song is both an introduction to Swain - who sings co-lead vocals - and a nod to her former band and late husband and bandmate, Dave Lamb, who died of leukemia in 2014.

“Covering this song was a way to pay homage to Dave’s excellent songwriting as we welcome MorganEve into TDM3,” the band said in a statement. “More to come soon.”

In the meantime, there’s the original Spirits, of which Sound Bites said: “(It’s) is a wayward trip across 13 songs and 45 minutes of music that goes in so many directions, it wouldn’t hang together in the hands of anybody else. But TDM3 are able to weave uptempo songs of existential dread balanced with hopes of reincarnation (“Lights on Me,” the title track), low-key dirges about inflation (“Hard Times”), skittering paeans to war heroes (“Fallen Champions”) and hilarious celebrations of, and warnings about, substance abuse (“I Love Doing Drugs”) into a cohesive listening experience that only grows better over time.”

“Fingers to the Bone” improves it further and adds context to TDM3 v. 2.0.

Grade card: The Devil Makes Three - Spirits (Deluxe Edition) - A-

Sound Bites was fortunate to catch the band’s new lineup at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass; read the blogs’s Day One coverage here.