Don't Blame the Stars was recorded live in a garage in Columbus, Ohio in May of 2008. It is a batch of songs about being agnostic and finding meaning in friendships, identity, and music instead of a higher power. Often with spoken word introductions, the album models itself after Willie Nelson's Yesterday's Wine, but whereas Willie is speaking to God, Black Swans' frontman Jerry DeCicca is talking to the listener, or himself, or no one. The making of the album stalled out when Noel Sayre, founding member and violinist, died that July in a swimming accident. The Black Swans returned to this recording several years later with the subjects of the songs taking on a more profound resonance.

Don't Blame the Stars – by James Jackson Toth of Wooden Wand

Don't Blame the Stars name-checks Donnie Fritts, Joe Tex, Sam Cooke, Arthur Alexander, Percy Mayfield, Barbara Lynn, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, Prince, Jesse Fuller, Elizabeth Cotton, Gregory Isaacs, Iris Dement, Merle Haggard, and Dion. Pretty encouraging when you consider that most spoony beardos DeCicca's age don't know Tom T. Hall from Tom G. Warrior. Don't Blame the Stars stands apart – it adds to the great tradition of American music it celebrates. The namechecking, then, while fun, is not what makes this record great. If it were a dim reproduction of the tradition, we could appreciate DeCicca's taste without actually enjoying his music. As it is, the record takes on old forms and finds things beautiful, unique and new hidden in their DNA.

The album opens with a line about the narrator being "buggered" by a clown. It's as fitting an introduction to this irreverent and beguiling album as any. "Joe Tex" is a loving tribute to the iconic R&B/soul artist. Turning its back on the indie rock dernier cri for gratuitous reverb and hastily dashed-off lyrics, "Joe Tex" proves DeCicca to be both a noble defender of and worthy heir to the legends he admires.

"Windshield Wipers" is the best of the bunch. From its first ramshackle chords sounding like a true classic, the song is all raucous call and response vocals, ebullient fiddle, and dirty staccato guitar. It harkens back to DeCicca's early years watching Columbus legends like Bassholes and V3 make amazing, dynamic music. When he sings "A change is gonna come soon / Sam Cooke, you're always right," his voice barely able to finish delivering the line, it is one of the most thrilling moments on an album full of such moments.

Elsewhere, DeCicca, a man who's been known to coo like a rooster in the middle of a tune, fondly recalls the halcyon days of Simon & Simon, and manages to work the phrase "Jeez Louise" into a dark waltz about kicking Lithium. In the hands of a lesser craftsman, a song that features a water-gargling solo might come off as self-consciously "wacky," but DeCicca sidesteps such a charge, as he is nothing if not natural. From top to bottom, this record is anti-pretentious.

Brief spoken interludes introduce many of the songs. Remarkably, these vignettes remain vivid, revealing, and often hilarious, even after repeated listenings. DeCicca's genuine nature permeates these introductions, collapsing the gap between artist and listener and underscoring the modest authenticity of the music. In turn, the introductions and the songs they follow become inseparable.

The album, however, isn't just DeCicca's show. Also highlighted is Noel Sayre, who provides some of the most lyrical and expressive violin playing on a contemporary rock album this side of Warren Ellis (Dirty 3). The double-tracked strings on "My Brother," in particular, could be heard as a fitting elegy for Sayre, who died tragically in 2008.

Don't Blame the Stars is one of the best records you'll hear all year. It is full of sad songs about happy things, and happy sounding songs about very, very strange things. They are irreverent, eidetic tales of superstition, addiction, being lost, getting found, and just being alone. In short, lyrical, hilarious meditations on being alive and livin'— for which, as Jerry will tell you, "there is no known cure."