Kevin Devine - Brooklyn Boy Audio

Kevin Devine
Brooklyn Boy
Audio

Kevin Devine's new CD, Put Your Ghost To Rest. Produced by Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck, Guided By Voices, The Vines), Put Your Ghost To Rest is a collection of 12 compelling songs showcasing Devine's keen, idiosyncratic observations on a wide range of topics including love, friendship, suicide, drinking and the sorry state of the Western civilization.

The Brooklyn, NY-based artist's three previous albums - Split The Country, Split The Street (2005, Triple Crown Records), Make the Clocks Move (2003, Triple Crown Records) and Circle Gets the Square (2001, Immigrant Sun Records) established him as a "perceptive folk poet" (Rolling Stone) and garnered Devine a place on Alternative Press' "Bands You Need To Know In 2004" feature.

Backed by The Goddamn Band (pianist/vocalist Amy Bracco, bassist/guitarist Chris Bracco, vocalist Carey Brandenburg, drummer/percussionist Mike Skinner, guitarist/bassist Russell Smith and violinist Margaret White), Put Your Ghost To Rest is by turns rowdy and restrained, from the giddy infatuation captured in "Like Cursing Kids" to the plaintive, poetic "A Billion Bees" with the steel-guitar strains of "Less Yesterday, More Today" falling somewhere in between. On "You'll Only End Up Joining Them," Devine weighs his options for self-annihilation - "the narrow noose or the waiting water" - before concluding "to kill yourself to raise the dead, it never works, you'll only end up joining them" while "The Burning City Smoke" is a rollicking, five-and-a-half minute indictment of the post-9/11 state of the Union.

Devine, who has opened for artists such as Sleater-Kinney, Brand New, Bright Eyes, Dashboard Confessional, Bob Mould, The Honorary Title and KT Tunstall, has been touring quite a bit this year, and is coming through your town soon!