The Deep Vibration: Veracruz

Like My Morning Jacket before them, the Deep Vibration out of Nashville, Tennessee, have lovingly strip-mined the music of country-rock pioneers such as the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Band and succeeded in sculpting a sound that’s as fresh as it is familiar. The quartet’s excellent five-track debut EP Veracruz infuses their clutch of world-weary tales about barbed romance and cheatin’ hearts with bursts of Memphis horns (“Thanks to You”), explosive drum runs, ’60s girl-group percussion (“Mississippi Women”) and dueling guitars, while Matt Campbell’s soulful country vocals — think two parts Neil Young to one part Gram Parsons — lassos the numbers in an anguished rootsy warmth. Christened by Lou Reed, and with Gillian Welch singing the boys’ praises (she provides spectral harmony vocals to the outstanding bittersweet story-song “Tennessee Rose”), the Deep Vibration have surely been sprinkled with country-rock fairy dust. Watch this space.