Son Volt's 'American Central Dust' new on CD

Daughtry,

'Leave This Town'

"Leave This Town" (19/RCA) is the second album by Daughtry, the band fronted by former "American Idol" favorite Chris Daughtry that carries his name and his unmistakable Neanderthal-chic scent. The 2006 Daughtry debut album was a robust celebration of stoicism, hardy even when tender. And Daughtry is often a tremendous singer, matching the triumphalist impulses of Jon Bon Jovi with the persistent tonal misery of Staind's Aaron Lewis. In the late 1990s not only would Daughtry have been one of the era's best-selling acts but also one of its most emotionally resonant.

A decade later Daughtry is an anachronism and plenty content with his blinders. At best "Leave This Town" inches beyond its predecessor, deeply tunneled into the hard-rock mainstream but a touch more confident and eclectic. On the first half of the breathable "Call Your Name," Daughtry shelves his growl in favor of unexpectedly warm soul inflections. "Every Time You Turn Around" is bolstered by the sturdy drumming of Joey Barnes. Elsewhere the band sticks with the sullen, where it excels, whether cutting off a cancerous relationship ("No Surprise") or figuring out how to stay in one ("Ghost of Me").

Daughtry plays a free concert at Seattle's Paramount Theatre on Friday, with tickets available through radio stations 106.1 KISS FM and STAR 105.1 FM. More information: www.samsungsummerkrush.com.

Jon Caramanica, The New York Times

Son Volt,

'American Central Dust'

Movement and stasis face off in bitter opposition throughout "American Central Dust," the stoic but sympathetic new Son Volt album (which came out on Rounder last week). For Jay Farrar, the band's lead singer and songwriter, stillness equals sickness, and locomotion means release. "Lonely roads and freight trains / Will keep us sane," he sings on "No Turning Back," a tribute to restless determination. He paints a more complicated picture elsewhere on the album, but always in the same rustic and square-jawed style.

Farrar has been mining this particular terrain more or less steadily since his tenure with the influential alt-country band Uncle Tupelo more than 15 years ago. "American Central Dust" has respectful nods to the Bakersfield sound courtesy of two new members, the pedal and lap steel player Mark Spencer and the guitarist Chris Masterson. It's all a clear throwback, but the starkly countrified vibe underscores the plaintive cast of Farrar's lyrics.

One of his stronger indictments, "When the Wheels Don't Move," adopts the tone of a Depression-era rabble-rouser, with arresting results. His writing gets more pedestrian on "Sultana," a ballad about the sinking of a 19th-century Mississippi steamship, and "Cocaine and Ashes," a reverie inspired by Keith Richards. But he does extremely well by "Dust of Daylight," a country two-step in which love is compared to a dangerous fog.

Son Volt plays a sold-out show July 22 at Woodland Park Zoo's ZooTunes with Cowboy Junkies.

Nate Chinen, New York Times News Service