Disaster, or near disaster, can bring life into focus quicker than just about anything. Remember back to the first time you wiped out on your bike as a kid. Right afterward, wasn't there a heightened sense of reality? As if you were asleep right up to the moment when you flipped over your handlebars? You might have been bruised and bleeding, but after the crying was over, didn't you feel more alive than ever?

This frozen moment of awareness is something Spokane managed to extend and harness long enough to create an album's worth of songs. Midway through recording , the Richmond-based trio's fourth album, the members of Spokane were involved in a car accident in which they flipped over twice. They were lucky to walk away without serious injury, but the accident obviously informed the remainder of the sessions. It's hard not to attribute the increased urgency displayed here over previous work to their close call behind the wheel.