For their last three albums, The Devil Doves geared up for their releases with two singles. One, a delicate songwriter driven track. The other, more along the lines of their “clusterfolk” sound. A devil and a dove, if you will.

Their latest album, Parlor Tricks, is no exception.

“Banquet” is their devil; a Tim Burton-style track that is equal parts lively and unusual. Their dove, “Seventeen Streets”, is an ode to letting go of anything that is worth setting free. The eight tracks in between are carefully curated to provide a listening experience that resembles the traditional track listing of mixtapes: a strong start, followed by a cool-off period before bringing in an introspective b-side and ending with the song they’re most excited about.

While there is no narrative to tell in this batch of songs, there was a life event that inspired many of its lyrics. Songwriter and lead vocalist Junior Kauffman was to receive open heart surgery at the end of 2024, and he found himself expressing those thoughts and worries through writing. They took several of those songs along with the ones filled with pop culture references and turned it into Parlor Tricks.

Kauffman may be the primary songwriter but he gives all the credit to his bandmates for taking his ideas and making them a final version that everyone can be proud of. Bassist Eric Nassau has a deep understanding of song structure. Keyboardist Jeff Straw creates sonic landscapes to compliment the lyrics. Percussionist Kyle Davis brings a sound uniquely his own to the trejon. They may not relate to the story behind “Bandages”, with straightforward lyrics about how much it sucks to need open heart surgery, but the ukulele-driven song is just as much theirs.

“We’ve been together 13 years,” Kauffman said. “I think it’s hard to keep a band together. I’m just proud of that and that we still all like each other. When you have that shorthand, it makes everything go quicker. It’s rare to have everyone agree on that, but we do. We all have the same vision.”

Part of the reason why the 10 tracks from Parlor Tricks have horns or ukuleles or other lesser used instruments is that they continue to push one another to try something new. These songs may have been played once or a dozen times at a live show, and sometimes seeking a new way to play them to an audience gave them the opportunity to incorporate that into the recorded version.

“We are excited in a way that we’ve never been about a collection of songs,” Kauffman said. “The way they came through, it just seemed to work. We’re not patting ourselves on the back but we’ve been at it a while and I think we’ve figured out what we do best.”

They refer to themselves as odd or strange when it comes to their music, but The Devil Doves know how to push themselves creatively and bring forth a sound that is unparalleled. They can take the good and the bad and give it a beat that is difficult to not enjoy.

“That goes back to when I came up with The Devil Doves in the first place,” Kauffman said. “We all got the light, we all got the dark; the yin and the yang and all of that business. I do really feel that there is something to that.”