In late August of 2002, Warren Zevon was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a virulent and inoperable form of lung cancer; with his life expectancy expected to be no more than a few months, Zevon focused his dwindling energies on completing a final album, and The Wind, released a year after Zevon learned of his condition, was the result. With a backstory like that, it's all but impossible to ignore the subtext of Zevon's mortality while listening to The Wind, though thankfully he's opted not to make an album about illness or death (ironically, he already did that with 2000's Life'll Kill Ya) or create a musical last will and testament. While The Wind occasionally and obliquely touches on Zevon's illness — most notably the mournful "Keep Me In Your Heart" and the dirty blues raunch of "Rub Me Raw" — in many ways it sounds like a fairly typical Warren Zevon album, though of course this time out the caustic wit cuts a bit deeper, the screeds against a world gone mad sound more woeful,