The music here, while remaining coherent, does wander from style to style, mainly between the boulevards of dark folk and indie garage blues, with the ever so slight veering into 70's glam a la T. Rex or "Suffragette"-era Bowie.

Opening is the brief but brilliant "Demon Tied To A Chair In My Brain," which is slightly misleading with its clean acoustic guitar and Riggs' smooth crooning about his mental state. From there the shadings darken with "Didn't Know Yet What I'd Know When I Was Bleedin'," a stomping second track that could have well been a lost Agents Of Oblivion tune ("When my chemicals go wrong/Murder the devil/Take his song for my own"), on through to the haunting, wavering high keys on "Terrors Of Nightlife" sounding almost like a theremin, or a ghostly whine.

On "Ouroboros" Riggs plaintively sings, "The wilderness and all its thorns tangle up around up around my horn I ain’t got time to die tonight" over a stilted acoustic guitar. "Living Is Suicide," with an almost glitzy NYC punk vibe, and the refrain "Have mercy on the devil; he's a friend of mine." The bayou blues brawl of "Dog-headed Whore" is a bare bones affair of vocals and guitar only. Also of note is the splendid cover of Richard Thompson's "Wall Of Death" delivered here in its manic glory with a new oil black rock sheen. The album closer "Dethbryte" sounds like The Beatles through the dark backward.

Riggs' musical partner and producer here is Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Skunk, Zwan), and what they have done is crafted a near perfect soundtrack to fractured nothing; perhaps an evening in late August, skies pregnant with the threat of rain and nothing or no one around but you--a soundtrack of isolation and longing; a beautiful aural companion to your reflection in a broken mirror.

written by John Boden

Playing time: 35:16