Best Cow Reference

On "The Truth About Cows," the opening track to its just-released album The Egg, Shiner's Allen Epley dutifully records the activities of a fairly unremarkable herd. The cows, they all make love/then leave when they are done, Epley notes with the detached tone of a bored wildlife documentarian. But when Epley sings The cows have all come home, the eerie guitars and slow-moving melodies give his words a darkly prophetic gleam, as if it's a metaphorical reference to an impending apocalypse. Maybe Shiner's directly addressing bovine concerns, or maybe the band's digging into deeper subject matter -- it's hard to tell. However, it's safe to say that this prime cut offers more entertainment value than any of the painful puns associated with the cows in The Plaza's Plexiglas parade.