Feral Fire

After more than a decade of independent releases and self-financed tours, it’s safe to say that Glossary won’t be joining the Drive-By Truckers as big-time leaders of the country-rock movement. For those who’ve managed to stumble across central Tennessee’s best-kept secret, though, albums like Feral Fire are fine examples of Southern rock shot through with bar-band abandon, twang, and ruminations on life, love, and lust in a small town. The lineup has changed considerably since 1998, when Southern by the Grace of Location introduced Glossary as contemporaries of Centro-Matic and Lucero. Frontman Joey Kneiser is still in the driver’s seat, and he steers the band’s sound like Patterson Hood’s younger brother — not as interested in southern folklore, perhaps, but just as focused on the characters that inhabit the region. Like the title suggests, Feral Fire is full of muscled, guitar-heavy rock songs, most of them spinning stories of heartbroken narrators and hungover mornings. But the real highlight here — the one that makes Feral Fire one of the band’s best albums yet — is a stunning ballad named “The Sweet Forever,” proof that Glossary don't need decibels to make an impression.