To give you an idea of the contents herein: Picture Bruce Cockburn fronting the Rolling Stones — without either of their respective hubrises getting in the way of the music therein. Insanely articulate, deeply felt and yeah, rocking its greasy-chorded butt off on several occasions, when it’s not quietly ripping your heart out.

Not that Bill Mallonee doesn’t have some hubris of his own to deal with. In his own words, this album is a “testament to despair.” Shrouded over this entire album is his father's bouts with depression, Bill’s own regular bouts with depression, and a sense of wondering how far down the same path he’s destined to travel. Amidst the poetry (and even a few lighter-hearted moments) there’s plenty of brutal honesty to go around, directed mostly inward. And yet, there is hope.

And very few songs convey all of that as well as the opener, “Locust Years,” which sounds for all the world like “All Along the Watchtower” with a boatload of attitude. A breakthrough in my own depression came when I just sat down at the end of the day and banged out these songs on an acoustic. I had the anger to deliver the opening lines (in our title above) without difficulty, but to come to the chorus — “Come have your way / Come have your way with me / There’s nothing left / There’s nothing left to see” — and realize that, for all intents and purposes, I was singing a prayer for the exact place I was at…. yeah, the frozen rage that is depression began to break up that day.

“Tokyo Rose,” is equally relentless, and noticeably more dour. Mallonee takes the notorious World War II informer and uses her for a metaphor for a full-blown ode to self-deception, for far from the last time on this album:   

Everyone wants 
to be unopposed; 
we leave the straight and narrow 
for the lowest of roads. 
We all need somebody 
to lie to us, I suppose. 
That’s why everybody needs 
a Tokyo Rose.

“Black Crow” was probably the first song to connect with me, although it still only begins to hint the album to come.  The Cockburn/Stones comparison really comes to the fore here, and again, with some lyrics that aren't terribly difficult to sing along with, “I’m breaking down / I’m breaking down / I thank God there’s no one around / To see me, when I get like this / Don’t tell a soul, about my predicament.” Still, the bridge looks beyond the singer’s current “predicament”: “Earth and sky will soon wear out/ Your words will not decay / Yeah, You come with glorious shout / And all tears be wiped away.” Call it faith or call it a crutch, there's no arguing he means it.

The album really gets started with “Only a Scratch,” a fuzz-laden sea shanty/dirge that cuts deeper than any scratch. I’m still not sure whether Bill’s deliberately downplaying the degree of his pain or simply trying to put it into its proper perspective, but it oozes out through every line anyway, even amidst the gospel plea that frames the final verse/chorus:

So come, all ye weary, and you ones that languish 
Come , ye disconsolate, and sore distressed 
I heard my dad’s voice 
Near the river of pain 
Near the river of love 
They were — one and the same  

You can almost hear a pin drop 
Where it hurts the most 
You hear Dad’s hammer fall after 
He finishes His best work 

And I know I’m reeling 
Life, it goes fast 
I know I’m bleeding 
But it’s only a scratch.

The struggle for perspective continues in “Taking on Water,” the metaphor being just what you’d expect by now. Contradictions abound, and there’s no attempt to even try to refute them:  “Call it catastrophe — or the hand of the good Lord reaching through…. / Call me irresponsible — but baby, call me undeniably true / Well, at least for the moment….”

“Points of My Departure,” just as contradictory, struggles to put a good face on things and can’t quite do it, “I will pray this song and be forever grateful / At least as much as I — am able.” Not much of a reassurance at this point.

Fortunately, the boys rally for the centerpiece of this album, “All the Mercy We Have Found.” Words spill out frenetically over the top of some crunching guitars. But this ain’t too much monkey business — this is the sound of someone trying to talk faster than he can think, just to keep himself sane. How else do you explain someone trying to fit in the entirety of “Please draw near, would You bathe and caress, these equal parts faith and hopelessness / Equal parts joy and equal parts gloom, locked up inside these walls and empty tombs?” into a simple couplet? But it all comes together in one absolutely perfect chorus:

I think about my ship run aground 
All of the people I let down 
Yes, and the mercy we have found 
And the mercy we have found.

Things lighten up for a few minutes with the catchy, harmonica-driven “Version of the Truth.” Largely the same message of “Tokyo Rose,” but playfully poking fun rather tearing everything in the vicinity to shreds: “Fist too tight, tongue too loose / Up on my soapbox with my poor excuse / Everybody’s got their version / Of the truth.”

“Sitting” is the one semi-misfire on this album. On any other Bill/VoL album it’d be fine, but it’s simply not on the level of everything else here. Still, it’s a time to catch your breath before the final run, and the words don’t fail here either: “Rock and roll — what is it anymore? / Youth profound, or profane to endure / Passion in the backseat, or at the foot of the cross / Going, going, gone, and finally lost.”

The final charge starts in with “Willingly,” a melody that’ve done R.E.M. proud, and lyrics that go where fellow Athenian Michael Stipe only dreams of:

Hold the promise bright and sure 
Keep your heart pure 
As the shovel turns the earth 
The elements will have their say 
Grace, hope and pain 
Tended faithfully

Well, circumscribe that last remark 
Carve it down deep in my heart 
Where I go — a stone cast in the undertow 
Where I go — willingly.

The swaying, arpeggiating “Facsimile” returns yet again to the theme of self-deception, this time without rancor but also without flinching, rather just as a sad statement of truth:

It’s amazing what you’ve sold 
Always leaves you feeling old 
Less wiser, and more cold 
As you try to make your way 

Love is just a plea 
Deepest point of need 
We take a reasonable facsimile
Most of the time.

Plus I just love the line, “Faith pins her corsage / On Easter morning’s new mercy.”

From here we go to the almost anomalous song that nonetheless assured that this album would never see the light of Christian bookstores, “Love Cocoon.” It is, beyond a doubt, the most joyous, raucous tribute to conjugal bliss ever recorded — the problem, for some, lies in the fact that for the singer, the conjugating can’t start soon enough:

Honey, I wanna attack your flesh with glad abandon 
I wanna look for your fruits, I wanna put my hands on them 
I wanna pump up your thermostat, beneath your skin 
Uncover your swimming hole and dive right in…

Add lines such as “There’s an explosion of grace, dripping in my bed” and “Holy flesh, holy mirth / let’s take what’s coming and enjoy every inch worth,” and you can see where the potential for an uproar might’ve existed. (Song of Solomon had to be cited on several occasions during the debate that ensued. ) But no matter: Once you get past the potential eek factor, this song is pure joy, and it was meant to be heard that way.

Back to the down side for the last two. The sad, sad “Hang on Every Word” just drips with a sense of failure, as the hard questions come fast and furious:

You can only play the victim, for a short amount of time 
Your own wounds, you’ll have to lick them, ‘til the ambulance arrives…

Hanging by a thread, walking here among the dead — pleased to meet you 
What’s with my chemistry? My fallenness that strangles me? 
What am I crawling towards?…

Wife asked the other day, 
“Where’s your joy — did it slip away?” 
I could say — nothing.

And this is only a warm-up for the closer “Judas Skin.” Just Bill and a guitar, self-pummeling until nothing of himself’s left standing:

What is it you need to know, that you don’t already understand?… 
What is it that I fear? 
Why is it I don’t trust? 
Hiding out becomes career 
What am I covering up? 

But the album refuses to end there, even if the struggle is never really resolved, here or elsewhere:

What is it you need to find?
Love your Spirit working overtime 
When I come out of my spin 
And I find You’re still my friend

On my own again 
On my slow dark train 
How is it I am found 
In my Judas skin, spinning down?

I’ll shut up now. So buy it. Go ahead, try and prove me wrong.