The Slaughter Rule
This companion piece to the 2002 indie film offers instrumental snippets ofJay Farrar's original score along with a dozen cuts drawn from alt-country's moody songwriter wing. Nothing in Farrar's guitar-centric score--which consists mainly of brooding blues riffs andJohn Fahey-influenced acoustic numbers, colored occasionally by keyboards, feedback, and minimal percussion--would sound out of place on his 2001 solo album,Sebastopol. Recycled contributions fromNeko Case,Ryan Adams,Uncle Tupelo(a hard-to-find cover ofGram Parsons's "Blue Eyes"), and theFlatlandershold few surprises: they're all stellar, but none is exclusive to this disc. Most of the new tunes found here are conservative covers of country classics, including "Rank Stranger" (Vic Chesnutt), "When I Stop Dreaming" (Freakwater), and "Gathering Flowers for the Master's Bouquet" (Blood Oranges). Best of all areMalcolm Holcombe's hard-bitten rendition of "Killing the Blues" and thePernice Brothers' gauzy take on "Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?"--Anders Smith Lindall