Land of dust and diesel

In the years before British-pop acts such as Blur and Oasis commanded magazine and review space, a groundswell of terrific US bands paved the way for the 90s alt.country movement spearheaded by the likes of Uncle Tupelo, then Wilco and the Jayhawks.

Post-punk bands such as Green on Red and the Replacements defined a kind of early-Stones, slacker-country attitude. Their appeal was in their swagger and songs that suggested more melody than the singers were able to deliver. You filled in the missing parts at home.

A genuine whiff of those often thrilling and always edgy bands comes now from Lucero, a Southern four-piece on their third album, That Much Further West. Their previous two were more definitively alt.country apparently, but this one rocks hard.

It is ragged (but right, as they say) and their producer won't be up for a Grammy, but there's something of the diesel and dust, whisky and weed about these songs of dark but doomed romanticism delivered as gritty bar-room rock.

But it isn't all guitar jangle and scouring chords, there is also the acoustic snippet Joining the Army, that way out of childhood into acceptable manhood: "I just wanted to make grandfather proud, but he's not around, been gone since I was 13, I'm still worried what he thinks about me."

This is vital stuff.

Gina Villalobos is an alt.country singer-songwriter from California who also sounds like she had Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed from when the Stones were kissing up to country-rock. On her Rock'n'Roll Pony, however, she has a big reach (she covers World Party's breezily optimistic shoulda-been pop-radio hit Put The Message In The Box alongside her own ambivalent view of her home state).

At a time when many women singers adopt that lazy Lucinda Williams drawl, Villalobos has got some real energy (and rage) within her, and that gives a visceral power to songs propelled by a small band, which includes pedalsteel and guests on banjo, accordion and organ.

She's got some pop-smarts (So Much For Dying rides a Tom Petty jangle), but is equally at home on a pared-back acoustic ballad (Trying To Find You). These songs all sound highly personal (unless she is adopting a slightly battered persona), but she obviously enjoys the more common pleasures (Fooling Around).

Villalobos is scheduled to play the Dog's Bollix on June 24. On the strength of Rock'n'Roll Pony, it would be wise to be there.

Shurman are a hard-touring US outfit with good connections and are doubtless enjoyable in heartland bars and clubs with a Rolling Rock beer in hand. But their debut, Jubilee, errs too close to that radio-friendly version of alt.country rock that American programmers lap up between Wallflowers, Hootie, and Counting Crows albums.

Shurman, however, do the right thing: they name-check various states, which is bound to get a whoop in the stadiums they are aiming for. Pass.

If Shurman sound anxious to please it's an accusation never levelled at one-time bluegrass player Robbie Fulks, who moved into honky-tonk and roadhouse rock, had his demo produced by Steve Albini, and announced his opinion of Nashville in the song **** This Town.

These days he's no less repentant, but on Georgia Hard he reveals his inner George Jones on sometimes gorgeous, classic country balladry (Leave It To Losers) and straight-ahead material such as It's Always Raining Somewhere. But there's also the execrably comedic Roger Miller/Ray Stevens barroom encounter on I'm Gonna Take You Home (And Make You Like Me) and the jokey Countrier Than Thou, which will have you leaping to fast-forward.

Coldwater Tennessee is a dark tale of success and envy but Fulks needs more gravitas to make it convincing, and elsewhere he sounds as if he's writing for Jones (All You Can Cheat).

Fulks is a bit too scattergun on this outing, but selective listening reveals a strong songwriter, and a few instant classics.

At the other end of the spectrum is the electro-alt.country of Alabama 3 who gave us the theme to The Sopranos and come from Brixton. (Their '97 debut album was Exile on Coldharbour Lane, a reference to one of the main thoroughfares through that multi-cultural district.) Despite their Anglo origins they mash up country and blues on Outlaw through an implosion of samples and references with a loose theme of trains and their robbers.

Like Big and Rich (of Ride a Cowboy fame) it's hard to take this kind of country seriously - they don't - which is one of its virtues.

They deliver a maelstrom of party-hard guitars (Up Above My Head), mythologise the Great Train Robbers over chugging harmonica and with links to Jesse James, the Dalton Brothers and other such legends, and Honey in the Rock is a soulful, drug-dealer song.

How Can I Protect You should come to a smart radio near you sooner rather than later. So Outlaw isn't all country, but lopes along, has a rebel mentality, and sure is alt.