On their major-label debut, the Bottle Rockets achieve what Lynyrd Skynyrd often tried to do but never quite pulled off. Without sacrificing their identity as a proud blue-collar rock & roll band, the Bottle Rockets obliterate the redneck stereotype that has long been attached to Southern-style rock. This Festus, Mo., band's down-home roots flow naturally from the chunky rhythms, slide guitar, fiddle, mandolins and warm Ronnie Van Zant-like vocals that weave through The Brooklyn Side. Yet frontman Brian Henneman also brings an unambiguous social consciousness to his songs.

Henneman paints a moving picture of rural American poverty in the opening song, the acoustic-guitar-based "Welfare Music," which challenges the conservative rantings of loudmouths like Rush Limbaugh. In the raucous "Sunday Sports," Henneman profiles an emotionally shut down couch-potato husband whose addiction to bowling and stock-car racing masks his dull, workaday existence. "Idiot's Revenge" is Henneman's tirade against hypocrisy in the alternative-rock scene: "She likes Dinosaur Jr, but she can't tell you why," he sings. "Says you like country music, well, you deserve to die."

Fortunately, Henneman isn't above looking at his own weaknesses. Against the Hank Williams overtones of the whiskey-drenched "Queen of the World," he refers to himself as a "bastard" for not listening more closely to his lover. It's this personalized approach to Big Social Issues that gives life to Henneman's lyrics; the average blue-collar Americans who populate his songs become 3-D human beings with personalities, complex people who defy the caricatures of themselves on daytime TV talk shows.

For all the stereotype busting, The Brooklyn Side is equally impressive for its relaxed mix of trad country, inventive post-punk guitar rock and lyrical humor. "Radar Gun" capitalizes on ZZ Top's trademark muscular-but-minimal groove, and "1000 Dollar Car" hilariously details the hassles of owning a cheap used automobile. Although the Rockets occasionally lapse into a bar-band cliché – for example, kick-starting "Take Me to the Bank" with the outmoded Chuck Berry intro riff – there's not a single bad track on this thoroughly unpretentious album. (RS 719)

MARK KEMP