You are driving through a cold, grey morning along an Interstate highway, somewhere in the midwest. A weariness hangs over you as you pass empty, wet field after empty, wet field, exit after exit advertising Fuel & Food. At this point, you’ve forgotten where it is you are going, let alone where you are. So begins Jubilee, the fourth full length from Saskatoon’s the Deep Dark Woods, as solemn and melancholy an affair as any of the band’s previous LPs. The second track, and first single, “18th of December,” picks things up a notch, as though embracing the futility of the hopeless situation we each find ourselves on out the lonesome roads life can lead us, and pushing the engine into the red. The 13 tracks provide a brooding soundtrack for a late autumn day in classic DDW style. The songwriting and production display a refinement that comes with experience, like a veteran moonshiner’s product after years of tinkering at the still in the back 40. The album ends with “The Same Thing,” a dirge-like jam that just keeps rocking, not unlike a boozey winter night. A bleak beauty of an album. (Six Shooter Records, thedeepdarkwoods.com) Sheldon Birnie