Deer Tick have long walked a tightwire between total despair and fractured resilience, but Negativity represents a heroic leap forward on virtually all fronts for the Providence, Rhode Island-based band. Recorded with legendary producer/musician Steve Berlin (the Blasters, Los Lobos), the album - Deer Tick's fifth full-length studio release is the band's most personal work thus far as well as the band's most undeniable and universal, their famously freewheeling musical approach refined here into a gloriously cohesive whole.