Shoot The Dog, a debut LP from The Cloak Ox is a self-actualized study of parallel lives lived, abandoned spaces explored, vital/petty scores kept, momentary peace attained and, mostly, freedom sought. It sometimes sounds like a proto-metal band playing R&B. Or a fusion group covering Tom Petty. Or Manchester alt-dudes doing Americana. Actually, it sounds like The Cloak Ox, and that's clearly a pretty silly thing to try and pin down. Shoot The Dog begins with “Yesterday’s Me,” a nine-minute dive into Funkadelic swamp-sadness cut with hard-gnarled guitars and heartbreaking vignettes. The song ends with a fiery prog dirge that breaks across the strong back of “Josephine,” a Lynott-kissed rocker that disguises its dark implications in a blindly bright chorus.

The Cloak Ox aren’t here to dance around your issues. To paraphrase another Shoot The Dog song, they are in the business of creating real moments in this life. If you overlook them, that’s on you.