Just to be clear – No, I’m not reviewing my own album here! Pete Thelen is a Wisconsin based singer-songwriter operating in a sort of contemporary introspective bluesy style, part rock, part dreams, part stark imagination. Thelen sings, writes all the words and music, but most of the instrumentation (which includes bass, keyboards, electric guitar, cello, udu, nyckelharpa, and drum programs) is provided by Hans Christian, with additional musicians adding harmonica, guitars, and additional vocals, track depending. The eight tracks swerve into some pretty dark corners of life, and the lyrics – some are sung, others are almost recited – are inescapable and present some fairly intense imagery over Christians textures, rhythms and solos. “Footsteps” is a minor reworking of the track he first presented on the compilation Kaleidoscope–Musicians of Door County in 2005, and the closer “travelers” is a spoken track that recaps some of its lyrics, bathed in a cauldron of swirling keyboards. “Move On” is a gritty blues-rock number that’s more typical of the songs from his earlier Blues Today projects. A very strong opener, “Voodoo King” describes the world of a street shaman in the French quarter of New Orleans, over a mystical primal beat and flowing synth textures. Overall, this is an interesting album that holds up well over repeated listens.