The Devil Makes Three are a relatively recent discovery for us following Gordon’s dabbling with Americana/bluegrass, behaviour which lead to their debut album being gifted as a risky Christmas present by his good lady wife; he hasn’t looked back since. For John, who has less patience for such genres, the band were more opaque – and so for him this was a voyage of discovery.
Around the time we recorded the podcast Our Gordon saw them live at Nottingham’s The Bodega Social Club.
In each podcast episode we talk through the artist’s history chronologically, picking our favourite tracks and ranking the albums as we go, so check that out if you want to know how we came to our decisions and why we picked the playlist tracks we did.
Our ranking and track picks are a compromise of our two different personal opinions, and of course we have to consider the Jeffrey Rulebook. It is also only a snapshot in time, so don’t take them too seriously! But do please comment below with your picks.
The The Devil Makes Three Jeffrey Podcast playlist is also available here on Deezer.
See below for the full list:
Origins
All three members of The Devil Makes Three went to the same school in Vermont, although Pete and Cooper – who were close friends – didn’t really know Lucia that well. They toured as a duo and eventually reconnected with Lucia in Santa Cruz, California and so began The Devil Makes Three story.
The original line-up was:
- Pete Bernhard – vocals, guitar
- Lucia Turino – upright bass, vocals
- Cooper McBean – banjo, guitar, vocals
2002: The Devil Makes Three
Our ranking: 3rd of 5.
The debut album (originally released with ten tracks) is an in-your-face catchy bluegrass gem. It suffers slightly from not being as varied as it could be, and its ranking also suffers as it’s also not quite up John’s musical alley.
One of the limitations of sparse instrumentation and a clear defined style is the sameness of the final product. It ends up leaning heavily on the vocal for its melodies and the lyrics for its character, and – as excellent as the humorous lyrics are – it can come across as whimsical and lacking in depth.
Note: more recent versions of the album have four extra tracks which aren’t as strong as the main album and unbalance the experience – this shouldn’t be allowed, albums should be left alone, extra tracks can be available on extra discs, but not tagged on the end like a clumsy afterthought.
Our picks: Ten Feet Tall and Graveyard
2003: Longjohns, Boots and a Belt
Our ranking: 5th
Hot on the heels of their debut album, their second album Longjohns, Boots and a Belt takes a slight shift towards a more ragtime sound, but only slight. This still sounds pretty similar to their debut, but with fewer obvious hooks. This is no bad thing, it gives it a more mature feel, particularly with tracks such as River Deep, but does give it less immediate appeal.
Ranking this last feels a little harsh, but John was underwhelmed by the similarity to its predecessor, feeling it didn’t move the band forward very much nor add anything we hadn’t heard before. Repeated listening helps to tease out the subtle differences between the two, allowing you to appreciate the album better, but anyway, something has to be ranked last, that’s just the nature of a rankings system.
Our picks: River Deep and Tow.
2009: Do Wrong Right
Our ranking: 4th
A big step in the direction of ragtime and jazz.
Ranked a little lower as it is stylistically, as well as literally, in between the albums released before and after and therefore lacks a bit of identity. That said, it does include quite a few strong songs that feature in the band’s live set, particularly the four opening tracks of the album.
Our picks: Do Wrong Right and Working Man Blues
2014: I’m a Stranger Here
Our ranking: 2nd
Get out your straw boater as we go ragtime mad on 2014’s I’m a Stranger Here. There are at least six out of ten tracks (including one of our favourites Stranger) that we’d describe as heavily ragtime influenced, and amongst the others there’s some strong stuff with a Blur-ish sound to Hand Back Down, classic easy listening with Goodbye Old Friend and the jolly violin of Dead Body Moving.
John found the variety more interesting while Gordon was put off a little by that more jazzy-ragtime influence, although even he agreed that the variety saves the day.
Our picks: Stranger and Dead Body Moving
2016: Redemption and Ruin
Our ranking: No sir! it’s a covers album.
Originally starting as a gospel album concept it morphed into a covers album with one side themed on redemption and the other on ruin, a nice idea, well executed, including the packaging which has a cover for each side. I’m sure you’ve all read the Jeffrey Rulebook by now so no need to point out that we don’t rank covers albums.
2018: Chains are Broken
Our ranking: Top!
Their most recent album includes a fuller band sound and a move towards a straight Americana sound. There are some really strong tracks here, particularly our picks Paint My Face and All Is Quiet. There isn’t a bad song on this one although there are a couple (Need To Lose and Deep Down) that are little less strong and feel like fillers when compared to the others.
A Little Note: although we don’t consider extra tracks when ranking albums, we’d like to make our position clear on the topic. Adding extra tracks to editions breaks the flow of the album, Chains Are Broken and I’m A Stranger Here, for example, have excellent closing songs (Castles and Goodbye Old Friend respectively) that bring their albums to fine conclusions, but with the extra tracks bunged on the end willy-nilly, that effect is spoiled – albums are (should be) crafted wholes not collections of parts!
Our picks: Paint My Face (see below) and All Is Quiet
This was also our favourite cover, although we rather liked them all:
Line-up change?
It was announced that Lucia Turino was to take some time off from touring, to be replaced by Morgan Eve Swain (formerly of Brown Bird and currently of The Huntress and the Holder of Hands) … but it was unclear if she had left the band proper. A clue dropped in our laps just before we recorded our podcast in that a single was released featuring Turino, and so it seems she’s still there, at least in the studio band.
The Jeffrey Music final ranking of The Devil Makes Three (2023):
- Chains Are Broken (2018)
- I’m A Stranger Here (2014)
- The Devil Makes Three (2002)
- Do Wrong Right (2009)
- Longjohns, Boots and a Belt (2003)
Jeffrey Music 