Even before I knew this was a road album this felt like a road album. Maybe the cover art subliminally suggested it, but the crusty, sunburnt quality of songs like Undertow, Departure, and Low Desert are bonafide shit kickers, wheezing dust and growling like rusty pickups racing across parched asphalt. The experimentation on E-bow the Letter and Leave sound like the band switched from the bleary, aggressive vodka of Monster to a wiser and more pensive emotional whiskey; just as inebriating but implemented to target a different memory you're trying to erase. The trio of Monster, New Adventures, and Up feel like the soundtrack to a 5 week road trip from East to West Coast and all the long flat roads in between.
