For me, the most entertaining music videos have always been the ones with at least the suggestion of a plot, something going on other than the band members rocking out. Victory at Sea's music hits me in the same way as those videos; Mona Elliott creates characters and tells their stories within the limited framework of rhyme schemes and math-rock rhythms. "Mary in June", The Good Night's first track, begins quiet and intense, gradually building to a frayed lament for a war wife living "alone in a tower protected by a maze...before cars ruled the streets". A sense of isolation and desperation pervades the instrumentation as well as the lyrics, with a jagged violin part and gloomy interplay between the guitar and bass, not to mention the plaintive wail that Elliott's voice becomes near the end of the song. "Canyon" switches between conversational, piano-enhanced verses and a rousing 3/4-time chorus, and makes use of cowboy-movie imagery. The song's narrator descends into a small town where an inhabitant tells her that she'll have to leave, and that "this place isn't big enough / For the two of us," only to have her throw his words back at him (obviously she's decided to stay).

After a while, The Good Night undergoes something of a shift in mood; "Proper Time" is stripped-down and gentle, starting out with just an acoustic guitar and Elliott's vocal, then bringing in the bass and drums halfway through. This less-dismal atmosphere continues until "The Bluebird of Happiness", which pitches into abject depression; Elliott doesn't sound as if she thinks she'll ever find the bluebird of the legend.

Victory at Sea have stuck with what works for them: complex rhythms and melodies, evocative lyrics, a curiously uplifting moroseness. Elliott, bassist/multi-instrumentalist Mel Lederman and drummer Carl Eklof are remarkably good at weaving richly dark sonic tapestries embroidered with Elliott's bleak tales. Musically, they continue to grow enough to stave off third-album redundancy; it's obvious that they have a few more stories in them.