Giant Sand, 'proVisions' (Yep Roc)

Country sprouts quotation marks with curiously winning results.

With its galumphing rhythms and down-home accents, provisions straddles the fence between parody and poetry, ultimately landing safely on its poetic ass, thanks to lines that transcend Flannery O’Connor 101: “Every girl is like a pearl / Hearts strung along and then left stranded,” ringleader Howe Gelb muses. Occasional Hee Haw–level throwbacks muck up the works (the dopey “Can Do,” for instance, featuring M. Ward). But despite the album’s cornpone reflex and occasional meandering, guitar-diddling foray (“Muck Machine” should have been dragged to the trash folder), provisions has its Southern-fried charms.

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