I can say with confidence that Glossary is the best band you've probably never heard of. If you are among the uninitiated, you should remedy that with all due haste. I am still finding new things to love about their previous disc, 2007's The Better Angels of Our Nature, which was released as a free download on their Web site. And now comes Feral Fire, their sixth full-length, which sounds like a milestone.

Glossary is a Southern band, a five-piece based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. And they wear their Southernness openly and proudly, but without the defensive swagger of so many bands in the "Southern rock" genre. Witness the title of Better Angels, which is taken from none other than Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address. The pride they show in their home region is more in its people, its spiritual traditions, and its literature. (This latest album's title comes from a line in Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road).

Glossary is anchored by the songwriting and singing of Joey Kneiser, his voice all cracked and weathered like the wood on a Tennessee barn, with harmonies from Kelley Kneiser, her voice all cool and creamy as The Dude's favorite White Russians. Added to Kneiser's guitar work is that of Todd Beene's lead, which is frequently a pedal steel. The propulsive yet sensitive rhythm section is Bingham Barnes (bass) and Eric Giles (drums).

Better Angels was dominated by mid-tempo fare that leaned more toward Glossary's alt-country side, but Feral Fire is a rock record to go with the band's live shows, which I'm told often involve a certain amount of face-peeling volume. Among the chief sonic influences on this record, I'm told, is Thin Lizzy, although I've never listened to Thin Lizzy so I can't verify that. But the rhythmic rockers are interspersed with mid-tempo power ballads and not a little bit of Southern soul, and Kneiser's (and Beene's) lyrics remain as nuanced and literary as ever.

The album opens with the 1-2-3 punch of the soulful "Lonely Is a Town," the totally danceable "Save Your Money for the Weekend" and the Crazy Horse–style slab of noise "Trembling Boy." The opener hints at spiritual matters.

Lonely is a town
On a night like this
Where the city moans like a neon sign
Just flickering to try and stay lit

And the moon looks like a hole
Cut out of the sky
And shining through is a beacon of light
Somewhere from the other side

"Save Your Money" adds a full measure of rock to the idea behind the old Billy Joel song "Only the Good Die Young." In this rendition of the situation, a testosterone-motivated but smooth-tongued Southern rabble-rouser is pleading with a wavering Christian girl to let go of her inhibitions. "I know Christian girls know what's wrong / but that doesn't mean they always have to do what's right." And "Trembling Boy" pairs the troubadour's wanderlust with the need for love and passion, while quoting Townes Van Zandt. "You're either chasing a dream or waiting around to die."

Beene's reverb-drenched steel guitar perfectly accents the longing in "Your Heart to Haunt": "Where, where does the soul reside / is it deep down in the bone / providing the flesh the freedom to roam / just aching to go back home." Similar questions are addressed in "The Sweet Forever," the quietest track, driven by lovely finger-picked acoustic guitar.

That steel guitar is used more like a lead electric ax in the arena-rocker "Bend With The Breeze," and the electric guitar lead in the middle-eight plays what sounds like a fiddle line, appropriate for this song of homespun wisdom: "You either bend with the breeze or let it break you."

Remaining highlights are the drop-dead-gorgeous soul of "Pretty Things" and Beene's folksy ballad, "Hope and Peril." Beene also rocks on another track, the anthemic "No Guarantee."

This is, simply, a great record. If you like literate, thoughtful lyrics paired with foot-stomping rock, all deeply rooted in the South, you'll love Feral Fire.

[Gary Whitehouse]