I'm having the tendency to roll the line, "Beggars can't be choosers," over and over in my head, while listening to these four songs from Kovacs and the Polar Bear. It seems to be a line that's given every character in these songs a shiner once or twice. They've watched the yolks of broken eggs run slimy down the paint jobs of their car or house windows. They've been kicked around enough to know that it's best to just appreciate those slight glimpses of good, cause they're not going to last longer than a few hours at a time. They've learned to be okay with their serving sizes and they've mostly refused to be defined by their meager terms. They're getting along the best they can, without much of a rooting section. They're fine with it all. It's not terribly tragic. They sing, "I was born in the weather, just the same as you," at the start of "Blessed Boiling Blood," a standout here, and it's a sentiment that strikes us as a beautiful bleeding sky, or shaking hand.