It can't be easy to be an agnostic when your last name is a religious title, but the world of Gene Priest's songs is not a very friendly place to begin with.

Gene Priest is ordinarily a sideman mainstay in the Knoxville, TN, music scene - manning the drum-kit for indie-rock acts HiLites and Cold Hands and the sludge-metal quartet, Hot Blood - but with equal doses of ego and humility, he has stepped into the footlights with his debut EP, "Living To Die," mixed in Knoxville by Sparklehorse's Scott Minor.

Melding the lo-fi sentimentality of Minor and Mark Linkous' Sparklehorse with the ethereal escapism of Radiohead, Priest and his ad-hoc backing band, The Cardinal Sin, deliver four songs intent on the exploration of the darkest corners of self-worth. The music crawls along through the dust on "Living To Die," not because it hasn't learned to walk; rather, it simply doesn't see a need to stand. It's with underlying confidence and defiance, rather than apathy and malaise when Priest sings, "No, I don't care if I ever see the light."

You can keep your world, because Priest has found salvation in his own surroundings: a land of damp earth, cold waters and revelation hidden under every stone.

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