Edmonton's unlikely Cali transplant, Rick Buckner, grows up and gets seriously weird today by wrestling with a grim anthology of 100-year old poetry and setting it to music that cuts most stuff out there to bloody shreds, remorselessly.

Not a thought was penned by Buckner, yet he brings more heat to the fire than ever witnessed. Backed by the sane half of Calexico, some of the sounds are as dark as any Americana, as hard-shelled as any rock. Cello and harmonica wade into pools of lyrical morphine and Christ-yearning, all buoyed by Buckner's talent-weary collection of road guitars.

Ten minutes 54 seconds in, the section dubbed Elizabeth Childers, A.D. Blood and Oscar Hummel (there is only one continuous track on The Hill, a fine cure for Napster), breathtaking. Buckner's voice goes high and hopelessly childlike, the guitar rips through like an Indian war drum, and the words, the words ... "Death is better than life" just might be the album's theme.

Then it gets better after that. Hearing Emily Sparks is like enduring a miscarriage film.

The title track is like coming home afterwards.

This is absolutely required listening for anyone who digs cowboy poetry, though it's far beyond that, not so trite and romantic.

Three spins later and you wonder why Buckner's been wasting his time on the seemingly brilliant work that made his career so far.

Man. Welcome to the future, the past spat defiantly with its unfortunate wisdom.

Track Listing 1.Mrs. Merritt
  02.Tom Merritt
  03.Elmer Karr
  04.Ollie McGee
  05.Fletcher McGee
  06.Julia Miller
  07.Willard Fluke
  08.Elizabeth Childers
  09.A.D. Blood
  10.Oscar Hummel
  11.Nellie Clark
  12.Johnnie Sayre
  13.Dora Williams
  14.Reuben Pantier
  15.Emily Sparks
  16.Amanda Barker
  17.The Hill
  18.William & Emily