Even for this schizophrenic trip into some nasty places, listening to opener "View From The Watertower" is like being knocked over by a searing wall of sludge, with Carla Bozulich's weird rant like the brainy kid in high school with tourette's. Set to a dissonant rhythm track, "Hands Of Production" establishes one of the major themes of the record, megalithic industry and industrial decay, while "Pray" is about what you'd expect from a song featuring Tom Waits. The title track and "Where'd Mom Go" are more conventional dark country ballads, with stand-out Carla Kihlstedt vocals. The first several tracks while not stellar do succeed in setting a disconcerting mood, but from the middle of the album on the songs are consistently more impressive, starting with "Red Apple Boy"**** (featuring David Thomas) a song like a demented mechanic's favorite bluegrass radio station. "Midnight"**** and "Salina"**** are two more amped-up country ballads, propelled by Megan Reilly and Kihlstedt's emotional vocals, fighting their way through graveyard violins and phantasmic wind chimes in the latter. The flip side also has the hard rockers. A frightening retelling of "The Ballad Of John Henry"**** (featuring Allen Willner) sounds like the collaboration of Lou Reed, David Lynch, and Motley Crue, and "Third Generation Pink Slip"**** (with Aaron Lazar) has brutal pounding sound that Tool wishes they they could swing, as the refrain "there ain't no pensions left and I'm a goddam pensioneeer" screams out of the basement. The theme is consistently rust belt atrophy, continued with grunge-Police "Boomtown"**** (with Jon Langford) and "Hewitt-Smithson"**** a withering monologue of Mellencamp / Springsteen Americana turning to disillusionment. While the first few tracks sound like a band searching for a sound, once it settles in the effect is potent and memorable.
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