The period of lives that Real Live Tigers' Tony Presley takes us into most frequently is the part where things have started swirling halfway down the drain. The water appears to be moving faster and faster, picking up steam and hustling away, off to meet whatever it's going to find down there in the dingy catchall. We meet where the fallout is cooling. We're joining them where they've continued on from dark moments. He sings about sand in sheets, the skin caught beneath nails and a need to be rid of longing and it all smacks a little like torture -- even getting rid of longing. It's some kind of giving up -- a loss. Presley stokes the shadows and provokes the moments when it feels as if there's been a degeneration of mood. We're no longer glimpsing any of the happy-go-luckies, but more where they take themselves when they're crippled -- in ways that are visibly undetectable. They have been compromised, as they've compromised. The glimmer of hope burns rather sickly, but it's still there somewhere.