Like the lonesome twang of Johnny Cash's guitar on a warm, summer Louisana night, on the rickety old wooden porch, under a full moon, with the crickets and the cornfield just a few feet away. There's your visual-- now let's talk about the album.

4AD recently severed ties with Warner Bros. and Elektra Records, effectively putting a bunch of their titles out of print in the United States. Luckily, 4AD won't let these gems go unheard, so they're reissuing 'em like hotcakes. Tarnation's Gentle Creatures was released back in 1995 to much critical acclaim. They followed it up a couple of years ago with their major label debut, Mirador, an album that, despite a great deal of sameness, was pretty damn good. (Except for a non- Tarnation- penned track called "Little Black Egg," which, quite frankly, sucked ass.)

Listening to Gentle Creatures now, it actually seems somewhat better than Mirador. There's more studio trickery (the opening track, "Game of Broken Hearts" sounds like it's being played off a mono-pressed 45 on a 1950s Wurlitzer), and the songs sound more like authenic classic country. Vocalist Paula Frazer emulates the ghosts of Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline to perfection-- if she hasn't endured years of vocal training, she's some kinda reincarnation.

Sure, there are tracks I could live without, like the cloying duet "Listen to the Wind" and the sickeningly melodramatic "Halfway to Madness." But, for the most part, Gentle Creatures comes through. "Game of Broken Hearts" is the loneliest country ballad this side of "Cryin'," and "Two Wrongs Won't Make Things Right" sounds like it came straight out of "Coal Miner's Daughter." So that's the deal about Tarnation's debut record. Do you want it? Just ask yourself... do you want it?

-Ryan Schreiber