Greg Trooper - Popular Demons (1998)

Trooper's fourth release rings like a breakthrough. If producer Buddy Miller's rolling Americana settings--a muscular approach to acoustic ensembles of mandolin, accordion, guitars, fiddle, and organ--provide a key, Trooper's songwriting, weathered to lean insights of human struggle, provides another. His melodic style is anthemic--simple three-chord grooves that afford space for the imaginative chops of Tammy Rogers, Duane Jarvis, and Miller, who throws down warm, swampy electric guitar. Trooper sounds hungry, his voice full of dark-eyed soul--reminiscent perhaps of Marc Cohn or a less cutting Steve Earle (who duets on a fantastic, bluesy reading of Dylan's "I'll Keep It with Mine," possibly the album's strongest moment). Popular Demons stands beside this year's most tasteful and catchy alternative country. --Roy Francis Kasten