parchedness

Midwest emo as refracted through Southeastern parchedness under a filter of radio pop-rock, delivering devastating sentiment about the emptiness of the American dream and the hopelessness of those subject to its whims.

Although that occasionally works in the various sun-and-water motifs that dominate the movie's examination of economic, spiritual parchedness, the basic story's narrative and psychological simplicity — characters stating their beliefs over and over again — becomes an increasing burden.

And now I did certainly remark a quality in his voice that was new to my ear; it was not, as he had said, a labour or thickness of utterance, but a dryness and parchedness of old age, with many breaks from high to low notes, and a lean noise of dribbling threading every word.