Unlike previous Golden Palominos records, which boasted a bevy of guest stars, Anton Fier worked only with one other musician for Dead Inside -- poet Nicole Blackman.

With Blackman providing appropriately bleak poetry, Fier has created one of the most evocative and disturbing soundscapes to grace any Golden Palominos album.

Though that means Dead Inside is darker than any of the group's other albums, it isn't necessarily more challenging -- it's just hard to get inside these detached and death-obsessed sounds.