Deluxe

As surely as long-haired, mother-loving bands from Florida, Alabama and Georgia could put the smell of cotton on '70s arena-rock, the children of the South are now cottoning to modern rock. The boundaries have loosened up a bit--the paradigms of this new breed of Southern rock include Live, from Pennsylvania (just above the Mason-Dixon line), and Arizona's Gin Blossoms--and so has the form. The boogie and jangle of old now compete with distorted guitar crunching, and while the new Southern bands honor and respect the family, they're not afraid to recognize how dysfunctional one can be. Call it cotton alternative. New Orleans, Louisiana's Better Than Ezra are deep in it--backwoods enough to yearn for the scent of pine and good iced tea (the winsome "Southern Girl"), yet urban enough to know the pain and fury of The Smiths and Nirvana. In "Teenager," they empathize with a misunderstood teen who listens to the Cure and shuffles between the homes of his divorced parents. In the meantime, they're playing a rewritten version of the Outlaws' "Green Grass And High Tides." A Southern gothic aesthetic is also at work on DELUXE. In "Summerhouse," a man is murdered, apparently by an abused woman, and no one in town can hide a smile. In the gorgeous, unplugged "Porcelain," the singer faces a woman who has stopped loving him and fantasizes about killing her. But where an old-time Southern rocker might've gone through with it, Better Than Ezra just sublimate.