it's a war protest album including songs written/sung from the perspective of a soldier who's seen battle. they rerecorded a couple songs, but they work with the concept because it's basically about numbing yourself and psyching yourself into committing acts of violence. it's more about the human element of being in combat than it is a political statement about occupying or withdrawing from foreign lands.

i always thought this would be an especially heavy and gloomy album even by low standards, but it has a good variety of tempos (again, by their standards, and they're kinda the posterchildren for the "slowcore" movement) and instrumentation.