Aside from death and taxes, there's one other thing I've learned is certain: if there's pain in your life, you're not alone. The juvenile, angst-ridden poet believes he's alone, much to the amusement of those who know better. More world-wise souls like Robert Fisher and Paul Austin realize that the catharsis is found in expression, communication and that neatly-tied package that weds the two of these together: storytelling. They know pain, but their pain is mature. And as a result, their expression of it resonates more universally.

Willard Grant Conspiracy has always made music with one hand on the razor blade. A collective-- more in the New England, Walden Pond transcendentalist tradition than any sort of sun-baked, hippie Californian way-- WGC has, over the years, been a halfway house for like-minded and not-so-like-minded stray musicians. This time out, Fisher and Austin are augmented by luminaries James Apt (Six Finger Satellite), Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine, The New Year), Terri Moeller and Carla Torgerson (Walkabouts) and Edith Frost (Edith Frost), among others.

On Everything's Fine, Fisher and Austin once again put their demons on display, soundtracked by populist instrumentation. A menagerie of lap steel, dobro, banjo, and mandolin might suggest alt.country, but the delivery is more mainstream and surface appealing, even despite the tendency to brood. You could call it "alt.folk" if that didn't a) smack of unnecessary genre-pigeonholing, and b) sound just plain silly.

Sunnier than the tormented, abyss-peering Mojave, Everything's Fine is also more pianocentric. The slight, simple "Hesitation" stands out early, reminiscent of R.E.M.'s "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" with its gently-shimmering, plain keyboard countermelody.

The true-to-form "Ballad of John Parker" follows immediately, and shifts around point-of-view while creeping out the listener with lines like "Early one morning in the warehouse of souls/ Digger was bent to carry the load/ Digger, oh, Digger what's left to reveal/ Known by the way that he carries the load." The song is exceptional but not representative. Instead, more often than not, the lyrics draw attention as the weak link. The narrative voice Fisher has culled over the course of three studio albums is undermined here by goofy, unnatural-sounding turns of phrase ("o'er," "brace of crows," etc). What's more, the hard-luck attitude permeating these gentle, plodding death ballads isn't convincing. It rings false, even though those familiar with previous work know it to be true.

The album ends on a narcotic note, first with the languid, hesitating strums and lap steel if "Closing Time," followed by the piano bar introspection of "Massachusetts." And so, eleven tracks pass by with hardly an urge to hit the reverse-track skip and hear one again. A pleasant listen, yes, but ultimately disposable.

Even though the title is understood to be intentionally tongue-in-cheek, the nose-wrinkling number of watered-down tracks on Everything's Fine suggest that things might actually be headed for fine, if not dandy. Which is bad news for Fisher and Austin's muse.

-John Dark