Adam Void returns to Cult Love with an eclectic mix of the most niche folk and country adjacent sounds. Where as their last album with Cult Love, "Freight Noise", was literally the sound of the tracks when train hopping, "STOWAWAY on a Sinking Ship" are the songs of the secret passengers themselves. An ode to the road, limericks of life, traditional tunes of tough times, treasures of the tracks, rural rhythms, ballads of the bums, poems by and for the people.
 
"STOWAWAY on a Sinking Ship" is a sonic embodiment of Adam Void and his life and is hard to pin beyond vague, umbrella expressions such as "neofolk", "antifolk", or "noise and country". A deep cut of the even deeper cut that is experimental folk music as a whole. Which I guess is what we will have to settle with calling it. The lyrics are frequently tongue in cheek, there is an underlying sense of humor in Void's music, but the songs themselves touch on larger, more serious issues as a whole such as poverty and surviving in the contemporary United States. Reoccurring themes of nostalgia, longing for earlier simple times, linger over Voids music and there is something no-better described as simply "rural" about the album itself. It exists in a paradoxical realm, rigidly, desperately traditional in lyrics, form, and production but simultaneously implementing drum machines and electronic keys. A tru folk and country album for living in the 21st century of the US?
 
Again, paradoxically, "STOWAWAY on a Sinking Ship" sonically sits in a very funny space. There is undeniably something very ANTI underlying the entirety of the release, illustrated with the presence of dissonant banjo plucks, flagrant noise elements, and heavily lofi production, but simultaneously, the album is FREAKISHLY catchy and there are some rhythmic stringed moments, pleasant drum beats, beautiful melodies, and fun lyrics that would truly resonate and be appreciated by most people with an open mind. It continually grows on you with every return. What at first might be a challenging listen quickly grows in to a whistle worthy ear worm.
 
Overall, the anomaly of Adam Void's "STOWAWAY on a Sinking Ship" is arguably a magnum opus of the artist and something to be approached with an open mind and heart. Fans of punk music and culture, loathers of pop country, and folk practitioners of the rural United States are highly encouraged to sit with this album and let it resonate. There is something exceptionally special and endearing about it, a gem, an artifact, and perhaps a relic of the last forty-odd years of United States living
 
- Natty Gray, Cult Love Sound Tapes