Here starts the third stage of Mark Olson's recording career.  He first came to prominence as the primary singer-songwriter for the Jayhawks, before leaving that seminal alt-country band to make music with his wife, Victoria Williams, in the more acoustic, organic Creekdrippers.  With his reedy voice and elemental imagery, Olson details the painful dissolution of that marriage on this solo album, clinging to music as a lifeline when everything else is lost.  In the album-opening "My Carol," he compares his love to "an animal bleeding in the snow," while "National Express" asks "Where's my home? How could I lose this in a day?"  Yet musically, "Clifton Bridge" and "Winter Song" rank with the best of his Jayhawks work, and both the title track and "Look into the Night" find redemption in the midst of despair.  Gary Louris joins his former Jayhawks bandmate for harmonies on three cuts.--Don McLeese