So many bands these days seem to emphasize pose and gesture over songs, structure and substance, you would think no one had ever heard of craftsmanship. The Silos' Susan Across the Water and its allied album, The Setters (they share three songs and the participation of Silos leader Walter Salas-Humara), offer proof that understatement and rock & roll are not mutually exclusive.

The Setters is the more low-key di the two albums. The result of what Salas-Humara, former True Believer Alejandro Escovedo and Wild Seeds founder Michael Hall (with Lucinda Williams' guitarist Gurf Morlix producing) did in their spare time in 1992, it's a side project, but it's one that is fully realized and deeply felt. While the songs sound rehearsed and arranged, the band plays with the ease and intuitiveness of a conversation between old friends.

The style that best suits the Setters is atmospheric, midtempo folk rock, from the tough-tender romanticism of Hall's "A Better Place" to the dreamy swing of Escovedo's "Helpless" to the resignation of Salas-Humara's "Shaking All Over the Place." It sounds like late-night music, but this could be engendered by the album's lack of drums. Instead, an assortment of cases, crates and metal shelves accent the beat without the percussive force that drums would bring. And for the most part, The Setters avoids the you-had-to-be-there feeling that can sometimes annoyingly pervade side projects.

Susan Across the Ocean, the Silos' first American release in four years, is a welcome return. Salas-Humara has a deft songwriting touch, creating terse, stripped-down songs as elegant as Shaker furniture. As on previous Silos albums, Salas-Humara employs a revolving set of musicians, with guitarist Manuel Verzosa (who died last year in a car accident) and violinist Mary Rowell the standouts.

Although recorded before the accident, the specter of Verzosa's death haunts the album, giving Salas-Humara's songs of loss additional resonance. There's a passion to Susan that seemed lacking from earlier releases, which for all their good qualities sometimes came across as distant and cool. This is exemplified by "Let's Take Some Drugs and Drive Around." In Hall's enervated reading on The Setters, the song seems flippant, the answer to a question asked one too many times. But Salas-Humara finds anger and risk Hall barely hints at, ending up with a song as exhilarating and disturbing as Neil Young's version of "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown" on Tonight's the Night.

Susan also improves on the two other songs reprised from The Setters, lending "Shaking All Over the Place" added muscle, while Salas-Humara's solo version of the title track (played by a full band on The Setters) shows that the tyranny of a singular vision sometimes works better than the necessary democracy of a side project.

While the pleasures to be found on The Setters and Susan Across the Ocean might unfortunately be too subtle to make much of an impression in either the mainstream or alternative marketplaces, anyone interested in heartfelt, well-made music would find the time spent listening to them fully rewarding.

Susan Across the Ocean and The Setters are available from Watermelon, 312-458-6275. (RS 694)

STEVEN MIRKIN