[February, 2023] The regular canine characters that crop up in Michael Hurley’s songs, album artwork and comic books might well be the collie dogs of his childhood – Boone and Jocko – along with a supporting cast of wild wolves and voracious werewolves. But if Hurley is the pooch alter-ego called Snock that he thinks he is – and, what with his ravenous fixation on food and sex, rapid fluctuations in mood between tail-wagging cheer and mopiness, and eternally juvenile personality, I’m inclined to agree – he’s certainly no working dog. He’s a sleepy mutt, snoozing all day on the porch and letting the sheep do whatever they damn well please. Musically speaking, this works to his favour, and his best songs have a kind of concentrated energy that must require enormous amounts of napping in advance of the creative process.