Dreary, slow motion. Mourning the loss of self-pity. Depressed jazz club rock telling the stories of their expressively rainy culture. Innovatively willing to poemize songs with stark rhythms, whether they pulse or flow.

Driving drums and bounce-mod bass riffs undercut any desire to lose focus, turning over that duty to the cathedral of electronically spastic guitars the velvet side of Manchester underground.

Anxiously driven rhythms come across with the urgency of a desire to leave a town and never look back. “Some Cities” and “Black and White Town” create unsympathically bleak portaits of northern English life with “no color and no sound”. This is the setting of the struggle between the life-draining environment and the fluid introspective narrative.

“Almost Lost Myself” introduces the personal conflict of the album. The song ebbs and flows with the inconsistency of a drug trip; aggressive snares pound on edge only to be broken by a sweeping operatic hymn. The song expounds the loss of one’s concentration amidst simple distractions, a result of a foggy, uninviting environment.

“Snowden” questions the effort (”Why should we care?”). (”Man, I’ve always felt your pain”) comes of genuinely and sincerely, the hinges of a relationship based on each other’s survival.

“The Storm” is a melancholy culmination.

“Walk In Fire” muses of a shared resentment and the connective therapy it provides. Sparked guitars dance around an optimistic pulse. Jimi’s anthemic vocals elevate the song to adrenal levels, hinting at an energy once possessed by the hardened Northern souls.

“One Of These Days” slams and rolls.

“Someday Soon” is cynical, dry optimism (”Some day soon you’ll know what feels to love some one”) with a fireplace-y honesty wrought by churning acoustic guitar, ringing drums, and cascading harmonies.

“Shadows of Salford” is an echoed piano and mournful hymn, the resolution and emotional bottom of the journey. Drained, but alive. Angelic wails float in the background, stopping the absolute

“Sky Stars Falling” is the spring of the survival, boisterous and strong. Excited drums pound under celebratory vocals, as if the cloud has been lifted, and they’ve reached the other side.