The Best? Maybe

Arguments over the interwebs have already started about what will be the best album indie album of ’09. Will it be Dirty Projectors random art-soul on Bitte Orca, or Animal Collective’s gorgeous psychedelic landscape called Merriweather Post Pavilion? Maybe another near perfect installment from America’s Radiohead, Wilco, or Grizzly Bear’s wondrous take on noire Brian Wilson? My pick for the debate isn’t necessarily the best, but it does have my vote for the saddest album of the year. Deer Tick’s Born on Flag Day is everything country used to—and should be: fuck, man, my life sucks, and I think about it too much so let’s crack open a beer, (you can hear that refreshing crack-fizz of a cold, cheap can on the final track, Strung) and spend a “sleepless night, painless and drugged”. You can almost smell the cheap beer and whiskey on the John Joseph McCauley III’s campfire crackle voice as he sings bittersweet sorrows into your ears while dirt plumes off the instruments with every guitar twang. The drum beats are as empty and hollow as McCauley’s hope. This will be the soundtrack to every guy getting dumped at the end of the summer by his girl who’s leaving town. It will be playing at the end of every late-night cookout, when all but three dudes are left, sitting around drinking bud out of cans and talking about how they’re not getting laid tonight.