It’s no coincidence that No Man’s Blues opens on raspy-voiced singer/songwriter Matt Arbogast, who croons an electro-folk ballad that continues to focus listeners’ attention long after the rhythm section fuses together an accompaniment of drums, bass and keyboard. Abrogast’s soothing, everyman guitar and his I-smoked-two-packs-a-day-and-don’t-give-a-fuck vocals clamp down with an unforgivingly raw allure. His narrative storytelling plays like the guilty pleasure of a long departed pulp novel, a jukebox sympathy that one would picture unfolding from the speakers of a sparse and seedy Irish pub. Not the trendy sort, where hipsters flirt and drink Guiness pints and listen to Flogging Molly, The Tossers and Dropkick Murphys, but one that caters to miners and mill workers and serves cheap bourbon. Reminiscent of latter day Dylan, if only Dylan could have lost his voice with such conviction. – Barry Engelhardt.