When I was a kid, maybe about eight or nine years old, my uncle married a woman originally from Nebraska. It must have been a few years after that, but during one Christmas, we found ourselves at my new Aunt's father's place. Among my only memories of that day are these great black and white photos of my Aunt's grandparents that lined the walls of the house. Even as a kid, I remember thinking how different these photos were from those of my own ancestors-- foreign and huddled and covered in dark, heavy clothes and beards. This family wore suits. They had neat haircuts and self- assurance. They belonged.

My mother said they were "the salt of the earth." I wasn't quite sure what that phrase meant at the time, but I took it to mean that the land belonged to my Aunt's family because her family belonged to the land. It that sense, Son Volt's Jay Farrar is the salt of the earth. First with Jeff Tweedy in Uncle Tupelo, then on the two previous Son Volt albums, Farrar has penned songs that inhabit the grand American myth as much as that myth inhabits the songs. For me, when played, these songs are inseparable from daydreams of roads traveled-- the Gulf Coast Highway from New Orleans to Biloxi, I-10 between San Antonio to El Paso, 101 up the Oregon Coast.

Farrar is able to evoke that sense of nostalgia with ease and I've finally figured out why. His wood- smoked whine is as familiar and comfortable as your favorite sweatshirt and he wraps it around tunes just as warm and worn. Which is why it was such a shock to many Son Volt fans to hear that voice ground through a demon's distortion box on Tremolo's opener, "Straightface." Seemingly answering the critics who panned the band's last album, Straightaways, for being lifeless and monotone, Farrar has really opened up the sound here. Or at least that's what I read in almost every review of the album.

Well, I'm here to tell ya that aside from the aforementioned vocal distortion, and a cacophonous harmonica solo that constitutes the album's third track, it's business as usual in the house that Gram Parsons built. It's all here-- the beautiful, languid melodies, the ethereal slide, the twangy pedal steel, and every musicians' new favorite toy, the Chamberlain. Farrar has crafted a fine volume with a bit more of a breath of life than its predecessor, including perhaps the finest song of his career, the apocalyptic "Medicine Hat." So, if you're up for it, swing by the place. We'll be out on the front porch sipping beers with Jay and the gang as the sun goes down.

-Neil Lieberman

"Medicine Hat"

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