The Deal With 44

South Bend Indiana is where the Devil's music is played. The Deal With 44 play some of the wierdest music I've ever heard. Are they an alternative band, a hippie jam band, or crazy psychedelic experimental acid project? It's complicated.

Somehow in the span of this 13 song record, The Deal With 44 manages to be all of these rolled into one wild soundscape with a twist of satan's own rock and roll for taste. The music oozes a dark feel at points yet remains startlingly happy and upbeat with acoustic guitars and excellent singing.

The band are all excellent musicians so the points in songs where it normally be a free for all hippie jam fest are actually organized and well executed.
The alternative influence and acid rock vibes mixed with the sometimes Vegas style singing ('Futura Tempest') allow for a unique sound to eminate from the band.

It may be weird, but it's good. Really good. I'd recommend it to anybody who's tripping your face off too, because it sounds great when you're sober as well - unlike most of that other hippie trip stuff.
I'd like to see them live sometime if the come around. Thumbs up. - Stereokiller

Its heavy beats, heavier lyrics, and haunting melodies earn it the label of a progressive, hard, or even acid rock band but below the surface, a deeper, darker literary inspiration explains “The Deal With 44.”
“"It is a reference to a character from the Mark Twain story “The Mysterious Stranger.” It also refers to the literary tradition used in stories like “The Tragic History of Dr Faust,” “The Devil And Tom Walker,” and the famous crossroads legend of Robert Johnson,” explains frontman, Jack Wilkinson. In short, it means selling one’s soul to the devil.
Despite Wilkinson’s rough exterior and the theme of the band, he says its aim is to communicate that “it’s OKy to feel things. And that reading books can be more gratifying than watching TV.”
The CD could pass for a horror film sound track, unless you listen closely.
Lyrics range from “if I kill myself every night/spraying bits of lung into the air” in the title track to “lady it took so long to find you/and know that my love is never done” in the romantic rocker, “Dead and Gone.”
“Metamorphosis” begins with the statement, “You can keep yourself from the suffering of change, but if you do not change, you will suffer.” Says Wilkinson, “It is an introspective contemplation using Kafka's story of the same name as a foundation.”
Wilkinson’s voice is Morrison-esque, matter of fact, slightly twangy with occasional raspiness and sharp, growling punctuations. But on the track “Furta Tempest,” which begins with the sound of a rainstorm, his singing is more melodic and mesmerizing. “It is a song about an ordeal I witnessed (guitarist) Aaron go through with his family two years ago,” he reveals.
The CD cover conveys the life/death/love message, with skeletons freeing doves, swinging on what appears to be a pregnant tree, and frolicking in flowered fields.
“The Deal with 44” dares to speak of the deepest fears of humanity: death, aloneness, pain, and evil — all of which wouldn’t be what they are without the mention of love, family, goodness, and hope. It’s a unique combination: emotions with underlying intelligence, wrapped up in the devil’s own rock ‘n’ roll. - In Michiana