Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel. Music that gets your feet tapping, and your mind and heart going as well. Really, this album is about new beginnings. There are more positive songs, starting songs. It's easy to take this kind of stuff and make it really down and maudlin.
Life is good.
The good stuff is good and the bad stuff is good. That's what Smith's been saying all along. It's arguably his most completely realized recording, every song a sharply etched sculpting of fallen love, changing realizations, resignation and raw hope. Smith, and the men and women he sings about, are all survivors of life's battles. But the cycle of endings and beginnings rarely sounds so catchy.