Little Darla is making a big deal about My Morning Jacket. Their spiel is this: My Morning Jacket is not just another ironic, derivative alt-country band. "There ain't nothin' trendy about 'em," Darla proclaims. "They're the real deal." This is followed by some gibberish about how you'll think you're listening to some lost George Jones or Johnny Cash album, and some further hooey about how My Morning Jacket don't know anything about the "indie" scene, and don't care for what they do know.

Bullocks. The truth of the matter is that you're not going to be hearing any of this stuff on your local Country and Western station. If you hear it on the radio at all, it's gonna be on some little college station. Y'know why? 'Cause it owes a lot more to that indie scene than Darla lets on. Yeah, the country force is strong with these guys. Sure, their country sound is not typical alt-posturing. And it's true that there's no irony in sight. But listening to The Tennessee Fire, you'll never be convinced that you're hearing anything other than what it is: country- influenced indie rock by four kids from Kentucky. There. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Here's something that might tip you off to the fact that this is not classic country: big, loud, echoing drums, song titles like "Evelyn is Not Real" and "I Will Be There When You Die," twelve feet of reverb on every last sound, and singer Jim James' vocal stylings, which often sound remarkably like another southern indie-rocker-- the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne. If you spring for a vinyl copy of the album (and you should), you'll be treated to an extra 7" worth of mournful, simply- strummed songs laid over what sounds like some early Meat Beat Manifesto drum programming. It's good stuff, but of course, it's hardly George Jones.

Still, the country vibe is undeniable. This may be the most lonesome record I've heard this year, with the aforementioned reverb making it sound like it was recorded in the dead of night at the back of a concrete drainage culvert, kudzu growing on the amps, major sevenths littering the ground like cigarette butts. These kids can harmonize, too, a talent that most alt-country bands are sadly lacking-- the album's highlight, the ghostly "They Ran," features some background ooh's and ahh's that'll make you think your hi-fi's haunted-- not by Hank Williams Sr., but by the memory of some foggy morning outside of Nashville, driving home to Colorado from Atlanta, broke and nearly out of gas, when you realized something had changed irrevocably and for the worse. Not bad for a song that's ostensibly about somebody stealing the singer's lighter.

Ultimately, the sooner you let go of Darla's press kit mumbo- jumbo, the sooner you can relax and enjoy an excellent album. Because, as with any other worthwhile band, country or otherwise, what makes The Tennessee Fire so great is not My Morning Jacket's "sound," but their songs.

-Zach Hooker