With a new album coming out this month, I've been meaning to make a post about Kevin Devine & the Goddamn Band. If you like Elliott Smith, Brand New, Bright Eyes, etc then you should give him a listen. Honestly, though, he has so many diverse songs that he's kind of difficult to classify. Just a really great independent singer/songwriter from Brooklyn with a penchant for incredibly clever lyrics.

I really think he's one of the best people making music right now, and he's definitely the "best artist you've never heard" - despite being active since 2002 or so as a solo artist and being on the verge of releasing his 5th album, there are tons of people who have never heard him. Well, I'm here to fix that!

Here's one of my favorite songs off the new album:





Here are the lyrics, which I'm quite fond of:

this is the window where
i watched the future start
my pupils dilated
the shock sped up my arms
i shut my ambushed eyes
and turned my face towards the heat

i felt the city choke
i heard the world at war
i prayed for providence
god said, ’don’t pray no more
you went and made your mess
now keep your blame off my feet’

so i got off my knees
i faced the devil’s day
the sky was murder red
the streets were headstone gray
a flaming ferris wheel
spun where the sun used to be

i watched its buckets dip and dance
i saw a couple making love lock hands
they were pushing for abandon and the answers it could bring
90 million miles from the graveyard growing over everything

i saw my lover chased
through fields of sugarcane
she clutched her belly close
and whispered, "keep us safe"
they ground her down to dust
no more miracles today

i dreamt myself awake
in a resort hotel
above a golden coast
beside my Southern belle
we heard the sea reborn
in each singing shell

and every coughing car
and every coiled snake
and every shrieking star
and every burning stake
dissolved to atmosphere
all of everything, erased

i spread into a distant hum
i droned along with everyone
and the earth grew green and nursed herself to what she used to be
all our senseless shouting calmed to quiet in her ancient memory

and oh!, what a joy,
to be free.

More:









Also, spinner.com has him as a featured artist today and is offering the title track of the new album as a free download. This song is incredible, I encourage everyone to download it:

Brother's Blood

You can hear more songs on his Myspace page. If you like what you hear, you can preorder the new CD on the record label's site. Hope some of you enjoy it, there are few things I like more than exposing people to good music.