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The title of a track on Red of Tooth and Claw, the fourth Murder By Death project, says it all: Spring Break 1899” What a great title. There is something playful yet sinister about it that captures the mood of the entire CD, which in turn captures the brooding, chilling mood of the immortal Ghost Riders In The Sky. Murder By Death, a Bloomington, Indiana quartet who have fashioned their name after the similarly titled 1976 classic film, are a guitar-driven band, but the haunting cello of Sarah Balliet and gravelly vocals of Adam Turla are more evocative of an aural soundtrack to a Cormac McCarthy novel (take your pick of any one). There’s the sudden and unexpected disaster of unknown etiology in Ash, or Fuego, reminiscent of the mood created by the gone, but not forgotten, 16 Horsepower. While David Eugene Edwards sings like an unchained banshee, however, Turla’s whisky-soaked vocals are more reminiscent of the condemned soul in the pit who calls not for rescue to lure others to their doom as well.

None of which would mean spit, of course, if not for great compositions, and Red of Tooth and Claw is bursting with them. ‘52 Ford manages to jam more sex, mayhem, and tragedy into less than two and one-half minutes than any number of novels do in 300 pages. And Spring Break 1899 is about just that, however improbable it might seem, about a morning after a night before during a nineteenth century road trip which, if it didn’t happen, should have. If there is a common message inRed of Tooth and Claw, it is that women are dangerous and that men are stupid and that the combination of the two equals death and destruction. The counterpoint between the cello and the electric guitar is damn near perfect, and the occasional mournful addition of Turla’s (Hammond?) organ adds to the funereal atmosphere.

Red of Tooth and Claw is one of those (increasingly few) CDs that is best heard from beginning to end, first time, next time, every time; vaguely a concept disc, it is stark, darkly beautiful, and ultimately quietly frightening in its execution. Recommended.