Dax Riggs is like David Bowie in the The Man Who Fell to Earth: an alien not belonging, a stranger trapped in a strange land. The casualty of a broken home, swamp-gothic singer-songwriter Riggs alternated between his Jehovah’s Witness mother and a liberal-minded father living in Louisiana, before finding his emotional niche on earth. He formed extraterrestrial Delta folk/blues-inspired duo deadboy & the Elephantmen before embarking on his first solo flight. Here, his conflicting though highly expressionistic DNA, patterned from a strand of Nick Cave’s receding hairline, runs deep and to the bone (not unlike Grinderman). From the snarling hellfire of "Demon Tied to a Chair in My Brain" to the poetic deliverance of "Didn't Know Yet What I'd Know When I Was Bleedin'" to the R&B/gospel-rooted muscle of "Radiation Blues," Riggs unearths hair-raising revelations of a pained outsider trying to avoid material trappings and overcome the metaphysical despair of a Ziggy-like alter-ego.