Anyone who's suffered a loss knows that at some point, the spastic blur of sudden pain must eventually flow into sadness. Angst's geography--the rocky territory covered by all the hewing and crying, the wringing and wrestling--progresses toward an inevitable limpness that, when allowed to wilt fully, unfurls then disintegrates, leaving in its aftermath the delicate and far-flung threads of acceptance.

Where Kansas City, Missouri's Boys Life left off in 1996 with Departures and Landfalls, a stuttering eruption in gauged tension, driven by tenacious rhythm, Canyon picks up with a lovely, crystalline frailty, one that threatens to shatter at any moment. Guitar, lap steel, harmonica, and accordion are grounded by prominent Rhodes piano, and vocalist Brandon Butler's incandescent singing voice displays little of the posturing of Boys Life's most tempestuous moments. Melodies wax and wane as verses suspire and choruses grieve.

Canyon opens with a lone, lazily strummed acoustic guitar--and, as "Wheat Penny" falls into Slowdive/Mojave 3-like contemplation, Butler's course is soon entrenched. This is the kind of album that remains quiet and commodious enough to encourage mind and memory to paint sensory-laden backdrops for every song; desert heat, road dust, the crust of fitful sleep and the sour whiff of spiritual death are ever-present as Canyon's stories twist and taper somewhere just short of resolution. There's an audible sense of strife and a passage of time, but where that dallying got Butler isn't readily apparent: "I broke down by the side of the road/In the same car in the same clothes/...I broke down one year ago" ("Faith Has Broken Down"). The instrumental ghosts of Pink Floyd and the Verve (circa 1992, before all the shoving) wander through each song as breaths and vocals layer upon fluttery guitar tracks, and precise studio production and embellishment lend a brooding, dreamlike quality. Clearly, for now, Butler is content to languish in uncertainty, and out of such stalling comes one beautiful record.