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(NODEPRESSION.NET) -- As reworkings of the venerable Tupelo myth go, Paul Thorn's fifth solo album more than holds its own. The Mississippi town has become shorthand for southern tragedy; to invoke it is to invoke the rising and falling -- and intimations of another rising -- arc of whatever remains of the American dream.

Thorn actually hails from Tupelo, and this collection is distinguished by the changeable nuances of southern life. "We met at a church social over ice cream and chemistry," Thorn announces on the album-opening "Lucky 7 Ranch". Like so many of these songs, conflicts of class, race, creed and generation lurk behind the story of doomed passion. The title cut is even more explicit, turning a tire blowout and an encounter with the farmer's daughter into a story of temptation and betrayal that overcomes the cliched plot by force of Thorn's not-so-tough-guy growl.

A student of the folk artist Howard Finster, Thorn understands the power of character portraits, and what he lacks in Finster's humor, he makes up for in generous musical instincts. The core band of guitarist Bill Hinds, keyboardist Michael Graham, drummer Jeffery Perkins and bassist Doug Kahan get a taut, muscular, blue-rock sound, with lots of gospel overtones.

The last track, "When The Long Road Ends", is the sparest, a father's wish for a child (a la "Forever Young") that flirts with unfiltered sentimentality. "Then we'll both look back over where we've been," Thorn sings on the chorus. "We will have no regrets when the long road ends." His conflicted portraits may suggest otherwise, but it's an inevitable final, hopeful prayer.

-- ROY KASTEN
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Roy Kasten.