ADULTHOOD:

In a lot of ways, it's fitting that the new Deer Tick album -- Emotional Contracts, their first new LP in six years -- comes out just a few days before Father's Day. In the literal sense, the Rhode Island-based indie rock lifers (founded by frontman John McCauley in 2004, with their lineup solidified in 2009) are now husbands and fathers, but beyond that, this new record is all about being older and wiser, about looking back at your past self with the perspective that comes from growing up and settling down.

If you've been keeping tabs on the band, you already know that this evolution has been brewing for about a decade. McCauley cleaned up his act and married Vanessa Carlton back in 2013 -- swapping a notorious cocaine habit for a tamer, healthier domestic life. That same year, he addressed his struggles with substance abuse on the group's Negativity album. He and Carlton welcomed their daughter, Sidney, in 2015. In other words, the maturity and self-awareness on Emotional Contracts are hardly new developments.

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