There is little more satisfying than stumbling upon an old John Ford western after flipping fruitlessly through television channels late at night. It is two in the morning. You are lonely, in the good way. The cosmic desolation of Monument Valley, the comfort of your only friend the horse, the righteousness of the cowboy's code-it's perfect.

Ray Raposa is a man who just walked out of that film. Dark haired, mustachioed, and somewhat wild-eyed in his pictures, he is no John Wayne or Henry Fonda. In fact, he may have played the villain.

City of Refuge is the latest work by Castanets, the name under which Raposa releases his music. Written and recorded in its entirety by Raposa alone in a Nowhere, Nevada motel, Refuge is a meditation on a dark, primitive American west.

In true Ennio Morricone form, "The Destroyer" paints the backdrop with slow, ominous arpeggios and canters seamlessly into "Prettiest Chain" and "Glory B", songs which moan and drone for the good women of the west.

The trio of experimental noise interludes ("High Plain 1,2,3") bring a kind of calm in the storm and the more melodic tracks somewhat relieve the intensity of the album. Whereas noise in Raposa's earlier work served to energize the album, here it seems an afterthought.

Like the stoic cowboy, Raposa is a man of few and simple words. Although the simplicity and occasional triteness of the lyrics might have otherwise irritated this listener, they ultimately serve the album's dark stoicism. A line from "Shadow Valley" sums it up: "I swear your breath last night sounded just like thunder/ And gunshots in the night/ Into the city with my baby/ I don't want to fight."

Sometimes lonesome, sometimes wild, and always searching, City of Refuge is an homage to our American frontier. If The Searchers isn't on TV tonight, give it a listen.