Better The Devil

Chuck Melchin has been making music for over 20 years, playing up and down the northeast United States as a solo performer and with his band the Bean Pickers Union. Their 2007 debut release Potlatch garnered excellent reviews: Americana UK raves '[Potlatch] treat[s] us to a masterclass of Americana music, a perfect ten tracks long, each one an exemplar of the genre' while Twangville states 'if music is at it's finest when it paints a picture, then this album is the aural equivalent of a Hopper painting.' Featured in Nine Bullets' 'Essential Listening List', Potlatch was described as 'distinct stories carried by simple but equally powerful musical arrangements. For a debut these guys have set one hell of a bar for themselves... I can't wait to hear what they do next.' Now Chuck and his Bean Pickers Union have delivered a new slice of classic americana with Better the Devil. Produced by Steve Mayone and Bow Thayer in Thayer's mountaintop recording studio in rural Vermont, Better The Devil combines Chucks deft storytelling with his penchant for memorable and haunting melodies. Featuring veteran musicians who are members of New England's Americana scene, Better The Devil delivers 11 songs of despair, hope and redemption. As HearYa.com says 'The music absorbs you and places you at the scene that singer/songwriter Chuck Melchin paints for you' and Americana UK would ask 'What more does one need in their Americana?'