Waco Brothers

The more you listen to Jon Langford--or see him live, where he'll spout wisecracks for hours--the more impressive his verbal facility seems. But Deano is an equal partner in this particular metaphor system, which defines country music as the great lost conduit of white male working-class desperation. Langford tends toward the grimly matter-of-fact: "That's why they're called bars, 'cos they keep me inside." "But I'll paint myself back out/Of this corner everytime." Deano is more visionary, as in "Pigsville," where you wake up next to your own chalk outline, or "Hello to Everybody," where aliens abduct you to "a warmer planet/Where there is no consequence." Both sing so lustily that the band's indifference to the niceties of country as it exists in history is of no consequence. When the milder-voiced mandolinist Mr. Tracey Dear takes the mike, however, the illusion pales. (Grade: A-)