For those unfamiliar with Mike Watt and his place in punk-rock history, this isn’t the release to start with. Instead, go back and begin with his earlier days, with the Minutemen. (You know their stuff -- the TV show "Jackass" used the Minutemen tune "Corona" for its theme song.)

Considering it learning addition and subtraction before moving on to algebra and calculus. Watt’s music history is a rich tale. He started jamming with a friend at the tail end of the ‘70s, which evolved into the Minutemen; formed a band after receiving a phone call from a complete stranger; and later went on to play with indie-rock royalty on his debut solo album in 1995.

It was constant touring until 2000, when Watt nearly died when an abscess in his perineum -- the part of the body that polite folks call their "tain’t" -- knocking him out of music for months while he was laid up in recovery. The nine songs on this record are all intertwined, telling the story of Watt’s illness and recuperation in a jazzy, punk-rock opera loosely based on Dante’s Divine Comedy. Only Dante didn’t have a bass, organ, and drums.

Yes, it’s heady material based on an a near-death experience, but it’s also uplifting, reminding the listener that life can be short, so live it to the fullest.