SOMETHING ELSE! Emory Quinn - See You At The Future Light (!010)

Late in "Hand in Hand," for instance, Rigney tosses away the song`s shambling Jakob Dylan-sounding template for a soaring, anthematic hook. The same goes for "Moving On," a Southern rocker that ramps up into something approaching greasy metal after Rigney`s squalling, reverb-soaked turn. As See You At the Following Light closes, we find Rigney indulging in some alliterative banjo picking, playing against the guitar-hero type.

Vocalist and principal songwriter Clint Bracher, working the same fertile ground as Austin`s Band of Heathens and Walt Wilkins, connects the dots with a rough-hewn, hill country magnetism. He writes convincingly about good-time guys stopped cold by circumstance through Emory Quinn's fourth long-player. There`s no dearth of optimism, even though Bracher can`t get off from the arm-waving confusion found along life`s precipices. "Holes through the Windows" rattles along like a luminous lullaby, until a closer examination of the lyrics reveals the dark passions at play here. Bracher`s subject, surrounded by bloody shards of broken glass, has been constrained to tear down a lady friend`s returning antagonist. On "Tear Down the Walls," a stomping country lament that recalls Robert Earl Keen or the Drive-By Truckers, Quinn gives himself over to the sweet dangers of a woman. But he doesn`t enter the negotiations without some feel of what`s at stake: "I roll the rice," Bracher quietly sings. "Hope they roll my way." His characters have seen some things, some bad things. But that doesn`t think they are set to make up. "Don`t see and you will find," Bracher sings on "Meat In Mind," bolstered by a delicately ardent musical accompaniment. "Stop making plans and let your eye in your mind." Even when he looks backward on a faded love affair on "Finds Danger," Bracher fashions a story with an itinerant romanticism. Rigney`s ringing, Byrds-like jingle makes it virtually inconceivable to come too far into regret, anyway. Together with multi-instrumentalist Case Bell, this grouping of Texas A&M University products skip through musical classifications like a level stone over the rise of a quiet lake. It`s country rock, to be sure, but quickly followed by a serial of widening regional influences, including bluegrass, conjunto, arena-rock and Americana folk. "Be Here Now," a starkly honest personal assessment by a faithless lover, boasts a hard-drinking twang to match. "When I Dream" makes nice use of an electric piano signature, reminiscent of country rock`s period of control in the early 1970s. "Calling Your Name" sounds something like Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones, with this lazy pace that belies an emotional turbulence just beneath the surface. Then "Falling Down Again" comes crashing in, powered forward by drummer Erik Frankson, a fellow Texas A&M alum who united in August 2010. What best way to end things than with a winking apology after a night of indulging? In so doing, See You At The Following Light deftly sidesteps the shiny sentiments of today`s Nashville mainstream, yet avoids the mannered aridness sometimes associated with alt-country. They`re too busy having a full time.