On his second album, abandons the atmospheric acoustic blues-rock of his debut for a hard-hitting, grungy guitar attack. Appropriately, the songs are all about losers and hard times -- it's a dark, bleak album, twisting through its songs with a grim determination. The problem is, it doesn't always work. 's lyrics are still rooted in the folk-blues storytelling tradition, while his music follows the rules of contemporary hard rock, complete with start-stop dynamics and thick layers of distortion. However, he can't write riffs that equal the best of , , and , nor does he have melodies to rival theirs. His music works best a lyrical level and the musical approach on obscures his lyrics, making the record a muddled affair. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine