A peculiar indie rock musical, the debut album from co-founder and multi-instrumentalist falls stylistically somewhere between , , and , and its fever dream of a plot, which according to the press release was inspired by a 2004 jam session that found the pair "improvising lyrics about a labor conflict in a Western Pennsylvania coal town that their fathers had learned about from an old folk song taught in Quaker schools in the 1950s," is a largely ephemeral affair concerning robber barons, feisty maidens, and hard-drinking union workers, culminating in a particularly spirited town square hanging. and enlisted a small army of guest musicians for the project, including members of , and it boasts a refreshing and inclusive, old-fashioned '70s style prog-pop vibe, with highlights arriving via 's intoxicating faux-country/chamber pop gem "Wedding Day," which charmingly evokes the ' excellent and largely misunderstood LP, and the formidable presence of frontman , who infuses the magnificent and soulful opener "Coal Into Diamonds" and the quieter, yet no less commanding "Fathers and Brothers" with a gravitas that most of the other tracks strain for, yet never quite manage to achieve. ~ James Christopher Monger