Mid-tempo backbeats with mournful electric guitar melodies twining themselves in and through the spaces between kick and snare with Bondy's smoke-chafed voice narrating bleak images of death and longing. Ok, it ain't a party, but its the most gorgeous funeral you've ever been to, complete with a black horse-drawn hearse and the faces of sorrowed women shrouded in black veils. Certain songs (opener The Heart is Willing and The Twist, in particular) move with an overtly spooky determination, insistent on raising goosebumps and setting an eerie scene. The washes of noise that close Down In the Fire (Lost Sea) are well-placed and contribute to the overall unease. Stunning harmonies and looped walls of guitar noise thread in and out of the tunes like phantoms in an old asylum, Bondy's heartbroken croon slipping in and out of long empty hallways. Where the two previous A.A. Bondy records trafficked in country-tinged folk and heartfelt, direct poetry, this release treads on much darker and more sonically intriguing ground. The cowboy cadences have been replaced by swells of echoing feedback and overdriven electric guitar, the trademark harmonica and acoustic guitar that were ubiquitous on previous releases are entirely absent. The void they've left is expansive, deep and nearly impossible not to fall into.