Nathan Amundson has been making bleak, slow(core), and emotive music as Rivulets for well on a decade, and for his fifth studio album he pretty much stops beating around the bush about how awful everything is. With his live-show bandmates on bass and drums, Amundson recorded this collection in an old church-turned-music venue in Minnesota. When songs like "Everybody's on the Run" and "No Talking" build with seething, distorted guitars and thunderous toms, one imagines Duluth's Sacred Heart Music Center bathed in divine disappointment. Certain authorities might feel that songs about black hearts, "busy little mouths," and desperation and desire are better suited to dingy, smelly nightclubs. But upon hearing these soul-wrenching tunes, one assumes Rivulets may be forgiven the inappropriate locale. Amundson recalls Nick Drake at times and Red House Painters at others. His tone is husky and hushed, his acoustic guitar strums are as comforting as rain, and his lyrical confessions are painfully familiar. "Just let me be near you," he whispers on "Come See Me." Shouldn't he get extra points just for putting it all out there?