Seven years passed between Chains are Broken and Spirits and the Devil Makes Three made sure the album – their first with bassist MorganEve Swain – was worth the wait as the band returns to the stripped-down sound that suits it best. 

Whatever the music is, with its strands of bluegrass, country and rock ’n’ roll, and whatever the message, be it spiritual, economic and/or pro- or anti-drug abuse, the Devil Makes Three found themselves on Spirits.

Sometimes acoustic, sometimes electric and sometimes both, with drums on some cuts and not on others, finds Swain, who replaced Lucia Turino, fully integrated alongside multi-instrumentalists Cooper McBean and Pete Bernhard, who sings most of the tracks. 

Spirits is a wayward trip across 13 songs and 45 minutes of music that goes in so many directions, it wouldn’t hang together in the hands of anybody else. But TDM3 are able to weave uptempo songs of existential dread balanced with hopes of reincarnation (“Lights on Me,” the title track), low-key dirges about inflation (“Hard Times,” with McBean at the mic) skittering paeans to war heroes (“Fallen Champions”) and hilarious celebrations of, and warnings about, substance abuse (“I Love Doing Drugs”) into a cohesive listening experience that only grows better over time.

“Well I was tired/and I guess that I wanted to die/I figured that I may as well give crystal meth a try/my friends and family left me/and I lost my fame and wealth/but it feels so good that I bet I could whoop Jesus Christ himself/now excuse me while I find the last few crumbs down in this rug/oh, my god, I love doing drugs,” the band sings to a jaunty shuffle.

The comic relief comes near the end of the LP and provides some needed levity to the otherwise-heavy return to form that is Spirits.