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Like what 225 freelancer Alex V. Cook has to say about music? Then here is a healthier dose for you: Darkness, Racket and Twang is nearly 200 pages of Cook’s Lester Bangs-inspired praise and plunder of the past half-decade of rock that reads like a soundtracked journal of the mind zipping from Architecture in Helsinki to Yo La Tengo and back again. While bypassing overlong gonzo tangents, Cook does share with Bangs a search for the spiritual, the cosmic, the sacred in the song, while still imbibing—if you’re hip to even half his musical references—utter honesty and humor. “Smacks of premature necrophilia,” Cook offers of Johnny Cash’s crumbling-pillar voice on American IV: The Man Comes Around. And like Bangs, Cook occasionally slams The Beatles and other icons for no other reason apparently than the obviousness of the their accomplishments. Rock writers hate the obvious, because music journalism relies on magnifying the inconspicuous, those seemingly miracle details missed by the many whom over and over shake hands with the messenger and somehow miss the message. Cook does this well, connecting dots from all over the pop culture spectrum and crossing his heart with rock ’n’ roll. “I hope Keith Richards picks up a copy of [The Drive-By Truckers’ A Blessing and a Curse] and throws it at Mick’s head, coughing ‘Remember when we made good albums like this?’” Cook writes. And you better believe it. Darkness, Racket and Twang is available now through sidecartel.com.