You are in hell. There is no question of that now — in Lorton, in traffic, near what was once an official federal penitentiary and now is just a penitentiary of the mind and spirit. You are eight miles from home. It will be — look down — one hundred and two minutes. To be claustrophobic and lonely all at once — is this not the dream we all dream of?  Is this not what we have been working towards here in the DMV — the heart of the Beltway, where crucial decisions get made? And what of your gravity bong? Where is it? And what of the love of your life? Did she pick up the kids? Is she in the express lane? Where is everybody going?

Situated between the driving suburban exoticism of the Modern Lovers and the crushingly winsome picaresques of Harry Nilsson, One in a Row is an instant landmark of hilarious, heartbroken, lonesome, crowded, east coast, earworm ennui. The supermarket is lost in us.

One in a Row features a compelling landscape of musical guests, but it is really the work of two longtime friends and collaborators, Stephen Dawson and Jarret Nicolay, whose musical partnership began as members of Virginia Coalition, a hilarious, tuneful and funky direct descendant of Little Feat that was founded in the late ‘90s and still sells out large rooms all over the DMV today. One in a Row retains VACO’s runaway train exuberance, but redirects the energy towards Dawson’s remarkable collection of new songs — Graceland as reimagined by Big Star.

Take the lilting, buzzing melody of “Carry Your Own Shit,” which weds the sound and sentiment of an early-Costello kiss-off to a tugging, don’t-shoot-the-messenger vocal. Or the Randy Newman-esque “Soft Water Blues” which starts with the very Randy Newman couplet: “It’s mid-November/ and you’re buried in the garden.” From the Mats-urgent “Gravity Bong” (he finds it) to the all-time-great-terrible-advice anthem “Bad Motivator,” One in a Row is thirteen songs in 31 minutes that represents the finest writing of Dawson’s already remarkable career. Time passes slowly and then fades away. The Richard Thompson-fever-dream “When the Girls Were Young” is confessional music too-blissfully-stoned-to-remember what it’s confessing to. Common sense: “look over your shoulder.” The crucial promise, rendered over a bluegrass fiddle: “you won’t ever have to be alone.” The brilliant first single “Anesthesiology” is a Band on the Run-worthy epic that ends in classic, thrilling, passive-aggressive McCartney style: “I guess I’ll just leave it alone.”

So — you’re stranded in traffic on I-95 or I-66 or the GW Parkway, whichever way you choose to take your medicine. “Sometimes the things you love/ don’t love you back,” he sings on “Fuck That Place.” Fair enough. Traffic is awful.

Seriously — where the fuck is everyone going?

One in a Row is full of poignant, angry, hopeful theories, blessed hooks and something like a pathway forward. A new classic for a nervous time.