Doug Burr did not wait five years to release a new album; he worked five years to release a new album: the highly anticipated Pale White Dove. He forged every song on it to his satisfaction, recording several demos along the way. The result, a grave album comprising equal parts burning coals and heartening joy, did not disappoint. Now Burr is releasing 11 of those recorded demos as companion pieces to the original release in a packaged album called Pale White Dove Deluxe. A song of any substance is never really finished. Songs are fickle creatures and rarely stand still. The best any musician can do is give you a snapshot of a thing in flux. With Pale White Dove Deluxe, Texas artist Doug Burr gives his listeners a dog-eared photo of every track in its adolescence, and a special look into his meticulous songwriting process. Except for a breath of harmonica, the demos are all guitar and vocals, every song off of Pale White Dove stripped down to bare metal. The demos are lyrically and structurally similar to their finished versions, but one can more plainly hear Burr thinking out loud, throwing ideas overhand against the wall. All 11 demos stand like lonely forebears to their finished album versions. If Pale White Dove puts Doug Burr in the concert hall, the demos of Pale White Dove Deluxe place Doug Burr at the riverbank, conversing alone with the dusk air. The demos themselves sound so clear because, for Pale White Dove, Burr eschewed his old, hurried method of capturing demos on a handheld recording in favor of a studio setup with the help of Midlake’s Eric Pulido and bandmate Glen Farris. These were the shorn versions of songs that Burr would later clothe. The bare “First Son of Connecticut Blues” sounds like a raw, open wound and the “I See Satan Fall Like Lightning” demo is as menacing as its full band counterpart. Some tunes sound like pensive ballads in the distant, open air while others feel close enough to trouble the hairs on your neck. Taken as a whole, they stand up as an album in their own right. The release of Pale White Dove Deluxe is sure to please fans eager for more material from Burr. The same will find also a compelling look into the mind of songwriter and the beauty of art in kinesis.