'A River Ain't Much Too Love' is yet another collection of sombre-to-wistful vignettes, this time though, there's chinks of lights streaming through the songs. By no means a party record, it's at least midly infused with the summer. Bottles of gin in the park summer, but good weather nontheless.

'The Well' is positively jaunty with* Bill Callahan* offering the refrain "I watched that drip but it would not drop" in the midst of a down-home story about, well, a well. In fact, it's so (relatively) upbeat that Smog let's off a couple of "hoooos" as the temple reaches a previously-unheard of mid-tempo. 'Rock Bottom Riser' has a beautiful feel, with Callahan crooning of his adventures "diving, diving... diving", all lullaby-led piano chords and sparse brush work. 'I Feel Like The Mother Of The World' is full of rusty ringing strings and wonderous notions of "when I was young I got into the bath with my sister" and has more life in it than many whole Smog albums previous. Fans of the shuffling, gossamer 'barely-there' Callahan will be well catered for with 'In The Pines' and 'Drinking In The Dam', a song which is filled with beautiful ghostly sighs, building to the sort of full-bodied tunes that so rarely get an look-in on Smog's LPs. Pleasantly, 'A River...' is all the better for it.