Steven and Sherilyn Collins, the Texas pair otherwise known as Deadman, have captured a rare beauty and understated elegance rarely seen, in their new EP, In The Heart of Mankind. Reminiscent of music from the days of Gram Parsons and The Band, the EP is a brooding, ultimately uplifting testament to their belief that hope springs eternal. It is slated for release this May on One Little Indian.

In The Heart of Mankind, like their 2001 debut album, Paramour, was helmed by renowned producer/engineer Mark Howard, whose production resume also includes the likes of Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Chris Whitley, Marianne Faithfull, U2 and former boss Daniel Lanois. It was Howard's "vibey" work on Canadian artist Tim Gibbons' Shylingo that first convinced Steven Collins he had the right touch for Deadman's literary, Southwestern lit-flavored music. He keenly sent Howard a homemade EP of Deadman songs, but it was so long before a reply arrived that the band figured nothing would ever happen. Until they came home one day to find a message from Howard himself saying it was a good time to record—if they could be in his studio the following week. Without a second thought, Steven and Sherilyn promptly loaded up their car and drove to Los Angeles, where they made Paramour, named after Howard's studio.

It was a fruitful collaboration in many ways; Paramour was warmly received by the critics, and the band's friendship with Howard blossomed. So when it came time to record some new songs, Howard readily signed on. But this time, instead of focusing on geography and cultural iconography of Texas (as they had on Paramour), Deadman found that while living in the midst of momentous global uncertainty and historical changes they felt compelled to express more universal concerns.

The result, In the Heart of Mankind, is a more polished, guitar-forward, conceptual set of recordings that's a sonic and thematic descendent of U2's classic Joshua Tree. The EP's five songs—"When the Music's Not Forgotten," "Sad Ole' Geronimo," "Blood Moves," "Monsters of Goya" and the transcendent "Mankind"—are connected by threads of hope and by an atmospheric quality that's almost magnetic. Once Howard's shadowy soundscapes draw listeners into Deadman's alternate universe of pedal steel skies, crying guitars and ghostly airborne melodies, the mind is engaged by the provocative ideas and stories painted by Collins' deeply thought, imagery-laden lyrics. It's "Texas music" light-years removed from honky-tonk stereotypes, and it demands attention.

"I had been writing about what was interesting to me instead of what was happening to me," Steven says. "But when it came time to write the material for In The Heart of Mankind, what was happening [to us] was consuming. It's the most honest material that I've written in a while."

"We had a little more opportunity to think about what we wanted to do," Sherilyn recalls. "The first time we went out [to Howard's studio] it was kind of spur of the moment; this time we went out and we visited with Mark the summer before we recorded, and we listened to all the tunes [we'd written]. Steve and I talked about a theme of how things are very temporal here in our lives, and that you have only a certain amount of time on earth and that so many of the things that pull us in different directions are not going to last very long."

"This whole record is about the idea of Eternity," Steven says. "I feel like it's a challenge, because what are you going to do in the face of that? It's not a unique idea. But it's something that American music, at least in the last 20 years, has really run away from. It's like what Bob Dylan says to the Time magazine reporter in the documentary Don't Look Back: he says, 'you know, we're all gonna die someday, so you've got to do your job in the face of that; if you don't do it that way, you're not really living.'" That timely philosophy, he adds, was also part of the motivation for naming their band Deadman.

The new recordings were also helped along by a fortuitous twist of fate: an online retailer submitted Paramour to the Independent Music World Series contest (sponsored by Disc Makers and Billboard magazine), and out of 1700 entries Deadman won grand prize. The honor included equipment that enabled them to set up a home studio, where Steven now records and produces other artists—a much more flexible day job than the soul-draining corporate work he and Sherilyn had been doing to pay the mortgage. It was those anxious hand-to-mouth days that inspired "Monsters of Goya," with its references to witches and "the hooves of the beast."

They've since left their jobs, sold their house and moved out into the country. "That was a really difficult time for us," Sherilyn says. "We've really tried to take a leap of faith toward doing music full-time. It's been much healthier for us. There was just a lot of inner turmoil and a need to believe in the idea that music could be something transcendent."

That transcendence is embraced in the gently anthemic "Where the Music's Not Forgotten," inspired by the great musicians who've died over the past few years. Written after June Carter Cash's death and coincidentally recorded on the day of Johnny Cash's passing, it's a touching plea to not only remember the Johnny Cashes and Ray Charleses of the world, but to honor their vital musical legacies, and the humanity that spawned them: "In a time where the music is forgotten/ If we stand on a hill and touch no one/ How can we do good/ If we wash our hands of all our friends/ What change can really come/ If we hide our fears and don't draw near/ Then have we really lived/ Or are we all just standing here/ Hoping there is grace…"

The themes hark back to the classic conscientious folk Steven and Sherilyn both heard as children in their parents' record collection, as well as the rich gospel traditions that are inextricably entwined with Texas culture.

"I always loved the essence of gospel music," Steven says. "I think what woke me up was the ecstatic quality that gospel music had along with these sad kind of Irish melodies that I would hear in that music … some sort of spiritual connection that you'd get off a real melancholy song. When I started hearing music coming from the U.K.—the experiments of Brian Eno and Sinead O'Connor, these kinds of artists really incorporated that into their sound—that really shook me up, and I wanted to replicate that sonically. I love drones. I like melodies going on top of this modal type of thing, and I had not heard that in rock 'n' roll.

"I think gospel music really is the whole thing behind country 'n' western, rock 'n' roll and soul music," he enthuses. "You've got guys like Sam Cooke writing soul music out of gospel, or Aretha Franklin doing the same thing, and even Ray Charles. The essence of what we're doing with [our new songs] is that you have a bunch of frustrated Texans doing our little break-out version of that music. [The Ray Charles biopic] Ray shows that process of, 'What are you doin', man? You're playin' church music in here, get out of here.' You see there's conflict there, but then there's growth. It's really just great source material."

The swelling chords and uplifting choruses of "Blood Moves" and especially "Mankind" may be evocative of fervent rock 'n' roll saviors like Bruce Springsteen and Bono, but they're also rooted in those gospel traditions that have fed some of the greatest blues and American pop. That they reflect convictions forged after long journeys of existential searching detracts nothing from their musical power; indeed, it makes them even more relevant to contemporary conflicts: "When I'm feeling all is lost/ That the race is up;/ That the evil we do is taking us/ That the trials that we face are just too much/ And the wounds that we nurse are killing us:/ I will love mankind. / When my friends betray me, / I will love mankind/ When my accounts are empty, / I will love mankind."

Utopian idealism can't hack it in the real world, Steven says, "because you cannot love everybody at once." But, unabashed John Lennon fan that he is, he insists that "you can love the person next to you. And the person next to you can love the person next to him. It starts that way. And that's the thing that I'm attracted to about rock 'n' roll. It can be done. And if it can be done for a little while, then it's possible to be done on a sustained basis."

Profile courtesy of Deadman.