Uncle Tupelo: True to Life

With their first LP, No Depression, Uncle Tupelo paint a grim portrait of American life, ingeniously allying the rehearsed discontent of country music with that of punk rock. Sounding wise beyond their years, Farrar and Tweedy condemn the life of of desolation and toil while damning the vices that cause it: alcohol, idleness and poverty.

Appropriately enough, the music is always extreme -- either dirge-like or unabashedly noisy -- as the subject matter for every song is meloncholic. Whether approaching songwriting with a dipsomanaical thirst or with a defeatist's sense of reality, Uncle Tupelo never falter in their delivery of the prototypical alternative-country album.

HIGHLIGHTS: The agonizingly down-trodden Farrar compositions "Before I Break," "Whiskey Bottle," "Factory Belt," Life Worth Livin'," "Graveyard Shift," "Outdone" and "No Depression," a cover of the Carter Family classic. Tweedy's "That Year" and "Train."

LOWLIGHTS: The album's strongest material is definately at the beginning, leaving the weaker, but not throwaway, tracks at the end.