Royal Fingerbowl

Greyhound Afternoons

(BMI)

Royal Fingerbowl tries to cover every music genre. Jazz, country, rock and blues are included, although the band seems happiest in country and rock patches.

At the start, the New Orleans group tries to play goofy, half-ironic epics with grumbling blues guitar and lyrics that bounce from serious to stupid.

By track four, “Echoes in my Mind,” they have decided country seems like fun. This is a good thing because Royal Fingerbowl, goofy name and all, seems to understand country in a way most mainstream country acts don’t.

The band’s sound has that true, lonesome and yearning quality the band Uncle Tupelo reached down in the dust behind mainstream country’s refrigerator and pulled out. It’s even more impressive because Nashville can’t find it with a coat hanger covered in Bubblicious.

Royal Fingerbowl knows its business with a crawling tempo, a guitar picking out the minor keys and a lilting, weepy organ. The group even has the guts to throw some humor into the low-feelings fest. On “Sweet Sixteen,” singer, guitarist and songwriter Alex McMurray throws some verbal axes at teen movies in a track about being alone and down. “I’m sweet 16 and I’ve never been kissed,” he sings.

The best track on the album is the retro rock plus punk energy of “Someday’s Coming.” The track manages to sound catchy and weird at the same time. “When I meet my maker/I’m gonna kick him in the shins/And I hope I break ’em/I’m gonna make it worth my while/cause I’m never gonna die again,” McMurray sings. It’s a strange statement, but here the band is on rock-solid ground. This track manages to sound like what would have happened if The Clash recorded in the late 1950s.

Never one to go too fast, the band chills the tempos immediately with “Los Peregrinitos,” a jazzy, New Orleans-flavored gumbo that meanders from place to place with a little less structure and for a little longer than it should. It’s still a spicy brew, though.

In a record that is alternately grounded and spacey, the band doesn’t get the mix quite right. Its countryish soul is great, but the less conventional, louder and looser side to the group’s songwriting needs some work. This is a band that seems to have a lot to say, however, and if its voice gets a little bit clearer, it’ll be one worth hearing.