Album of the Week: Dance In The Sun by The Deadfields

There's some great music coming out of North Carolina lately. (Hopefuly that takes some of the sting out of Duke's loss to Lehigh!) We've already shared NC bands The Great Unknowns and Possum Jenkins with you. Now meet The Deadfields. If their debut album, Dance in the Sun, doesn't put a smile on your face, I don't know what will. With Alabama-inspired vocal harmonies and richly textured and uptempo melodies like Jake Owen at his giddiest, Dance in the Sun is a modern, countrified, Ode to Joy. Maybe that's because half the songs are about love. Not lust, not love gone wrong, but full on, swept out of your senses, even when it's wrong it's right, LOVE. In "Be Your Fool" they sing, "If I ain't all that, and you won't call me your man, well girl that's cool. I'll be your fool." Even the bad times and mistakes are redeemed by love. In "Into Your Arms" they sing, "every turn that I missed, I thought it was a waste of my time. But falling down was a gift, somehow showing me the way...into your arms." The love fest continues with the clever "Lay the Blame" and the sweet "Dandelions," and culminates in "We Stick Together." Avoiding cliches (both lyrically and musically) The Deadfields plumb the often mined territories of love and come out with gold where so many others come out with coal. They then turn their sights on those other two sources of joy: home and alcohol. In "Carolina Backroads" and "Where I'm From" they celebrate the small town joys of their Carolina home. In "Gasoline" and the 'wish I'd thought of that' "Liquor Ain't So Hard" they put the shine in moonshine. Singing, "Tonight I'm dreaming of those low country breezes and ol' summer evenings where the livin's easy and the liqour ain't so hard." Indeed, this album is the perfect nightcap to a perfect day of dancing in the sun.