There's very little that's warming on a day like today. We're in the teeth of an early winter and there's a quiet disgruntling flowing through the day, lingering along the floor and around our ankles so that our toes remain icy and we're unable to ever heat away the shivers. Thad Kopec's songs of life and love are blood-pumpers, but they're careful to still leave plenty of frost on the ground and at the lake's edge. They prefer to remind us that the conditions are unfavorable. There are beasts with dastardly sharp fangs on the lurk -- their paws unaffected by the cold, hard ground that they track across. They will be better off than we are. We can sense the wolves breathing, panting at our backs and we can feel something of a darkness slipping in the back door, like a spooky ether.