One thing I like about writing reviews - hell, the ONLY thing I like about writing them - is getting the chance to hear great music before everyone else. Or before a major record label comes in and shits all over it.

Otherwise writing just takes time out of my life that could be spent experimenting with new ways to harm myself.

I've been following the musical journey of Mat deRiso for several fascinating years now. I've watched his sound morph, then morph again, then come completely out of left field. When I first heard he was planning to release a mandolin and banjo-flavored roots project, my first thought was "Don't go backwards!", because he'd just released "Dirt Town City Limits", which I still consider the best rockabilly album to come out of flyover since 1959.

I needn't have worried. Mat learned mandolin and banjo in a crash course. He then sat down with Profane Saints bass wizard Kurt Mullins to assemble ten memorable tracks that range from frenetic to mournful, from mountain to strip mall, banjo to subtle electric leads. Mat's lyrics dance like angels and demons cage-fighting on the head of a red-hot pin. How many? Who cares?

The disc cranks off with Resurrection Cadillac, straight up string rockabilly with a startling twang thrown in like the sudden shock of a thrown rod at ninety miles an hour. The poetry is graphic, funny, and at times sad enough to make me laugh out loud.

Ford Marriage comes next, a strange and twisted love song that will resonate with anyone who has ever left a love behind that could have been something special, if only we hadn't been so screwed up at the time. Reconciliation is for Hollywood.

In the ballad Cannonball a family breaks up, but then maybe it wasn't much of a family, and the strongest part of it just keeps going, because there's no choice.

Nails and Grease drags us down to a broken-down part of town, where the trucks don't run despite the best efforts of dirty hands. Lots of frustration comes through on this one, just the way it should.

Three A.M. is pure erotic poetry, if your Eros has other places to be right after you're done.

40 Watt Moon is the song of a broken heart with fine memories, no hope, and no decent place to crash.

Ribbon of Dirt is - damn. Just damn, this is one fine roots tune. It feels a hundred years old, sung like it was written yesterday. A fiddle would tear this sucker up, but I'll take what's given. Listened to it a dozen times, gonna listen to it some more as soon as I finish this column. Damn.

The tragic story of Motorbelle rolls out with such easy inevitability that it is almost surprising to see that more young folks aren't in the obituary column. Beauty and death. Good stuff.

I listened to Dishwater Bourbon quite a few times, because I just loved the slow, steady feel of it. Also I'm a big fan of bourbon, especially when it is used in conjunction with casual, guilty sex in a composition.

The disc ends with the strong, rolling, mandolin-rich Plank Road Drag, where surreal beat poet meets drunken hillbilly in a roadhouse.

I have one complaint on this disc. I wish it had been longer, because I have to get up and restart it too often.