Most of the tunes on Keep Away The Dead were born at Mara Hall in Mara, BC (pop. 350) where bed tracks were laid down in the crisp air during the depth of winter. The arctic atmosphere of that empty, cavernous, hardwood structure was the perfect complement to Huebert's sensibility: a tense and acute restraint; a shivering, biting, sometimes bitter rending of barebones, folk-inflected rock music. With the addition of Shaunn Watt and Peter Carruthers, Siskiyou has coalesced into a superb, incisive four-piece band, honed over the past year by extensive touring in Europe and Canada, after which the quartet hit Vancouver's JC/DC Studio (Destroyer, New Pornographers) in early 2011, adding to the previous year's Mara sessions. Siskiyou' s debut was a stunning little scrapbook of short, sharp tunes; Keep Away The Dead ramps up with subtle care and clarity - something closer to a sonic novella. The resulting song cycle yields a strikingly cold-eyed, warm-hearted album, marked by quiet defiance and desperation, where each tune feels like another precious log thrown on a lone campfire burning in the cold night.