"Coughing Up Blood," — which incidentally, rocks like a sumbitch' — starts off with the ominous lines "up will come the cancer/up come volcanic ash" (think these guys might be smokers?), and ends by stating that "from all the cities I've swallowed/I shall be released." While on "Old Time Ticking Away," we find that from that same darkness "a new day is rising, pure and whole."

That same search for redemption continues on "Angels On A Passing Train," where a keyboard somewhat reminiscent of Del Shannon's "Runaway" punctuates how "your laughter is my Jesus/cut down from the cross," before wagering that "I'll see you in heaven, and raise you two stars."

On the track "Wilderness," things get far more literal in the biblical sense as the song finds our truth seeker "bleeding from the mouth, when I came down from the mountains," and "zapped by some sort of Moses hand shooting lightning." While on the title track, Marah finally concludes that "thru the eye of a needle, we're just trying to sail to heaven on an old shipwreck."

Between all of the sideroads Marah take on the road to redemption of Angels Of Destruction!, you'll most often find them seeking the same truth in the Spanish hostels of songs like "Santos de Madera" or in the wine bars of "Songbirdz."

But redemptive poetics aside — and there are far more great lyrics to be found on this great album than those I've quoted here — this is an album where Marah, to quote Hillary after New Hampshire, seems to have really found their voice.

It is also the first great record of 2008.