Texas's multifaceted Gourds have not been well served by record companies, a fact that has made their hard-to-pigeonhole music often just plain hard to find. To christen their signing to the stable, stellar Sugar Hill label, they're spinning a new, twangier set, Bolsa de Agua (as well as reissuing their prior albums). Bolsa has all the Gourds' characteristic elements--guitarist Kevin Russell's barrel-chested vocals and cleanly strummed acoustic guitars; Jimmy Smith's tipsy vocals and thick, sometimes slappy bass; Keith Langford's thwacking drum punctuations; Claude Bernard's accordion (and more); and a host of here rootsily narrative, there freaked, lyrics. To wit: Smith singing woefully, with dramatic violin and accordion backing, »I drank so much coffee / Now my hair it sticks up like the startled squirrels.« Even with such lines, though, the Gourds manage to balance (perfectly) the offhand humor of being Texans with small-town stories and musicians with a grasp and reach that connect in a way that defies alt-country stereotypes and blazes trails that only the Gourds will follow. --Andrew Bartlett