If you want to judge a book (or rather record, in this case) by its cover, then Albert DeMuth’s debut is one of those books that doesn’t reveal much about the contents within when you first approach it. With its swampy, poisonous, dirty-green background and a portrait of an artist sitting by himself with his face buried in his hands, the record certainly doesn’t reveal much about itself, other than that it’s not going to be an easy listen.

Further inspection of the record’s contents reveals that it’s dominated by Atmosphere with a capital A. From the classic spaghetti-western feel of “Econolite” and its lonesome whistling to the spacey fuzz of “Sediment of Slit” to the classic guitar flourishes of “f#2/in visions of,” it all seems to create a portrait of a man and his guitar (and maybe a couple of pedals) stuck in his room for a few hours and letting his imagination fly.

This is not the kind of record that wants or asks to be loved—there are way too many nooks and crannies that casual listeners might not be interested in exploring (plus, the constant sinister edge might be a turn off for some). For the rest of us, however, it just might provide a perfect soundtrack to the brutal winter of 2015.