While the country rock that Joe Henry has quietly refined during the last decade enjoys a resurgence through bands like the Jayhawks and Son Volt, Henry intuitively takes a step away from that sound on Trampoline, his sixth album. The disc forgoes the roots balladry of 1993's Kindness of the World and constructs a leaner, darker wash of ethereal guitar effects and moody, funk-inflected rock.

Trampoline still speaks at times in country & western idioms but not with honky-tonk pianos and Flying Burrito Brothers guitar licks. Rather, Henry paints impressionistic big-sky landscapes in the Ry Cooder mode, using pedal steel, banjo and lots of tremolo guitar. The percussion echoes dryly as if through a ghost town, while a gospel trombone and a rickety pump organ build a Southern Gothic vibe. Instead of the Jayhawks, who played on Kindness and 1992's Short Man's Room, Henry's musical backing comes from Helmet guitarist Page Hamilton, and for the album's covers, instead of the music of Tom T. Hall, Henry tackles Sly Stone's "Let Me Have It All."

The stylistic shifts make Trampoline Henry's most diverse and adventurous work. But if Henry is widening his horizons, he is also focusing his vision. No longer the folk poet spinning archetypal psalms, Henry pares lyrics down to their rawest bits and draws vivid scenes. Set to a churning rhythm that steadily rises in intensity, "Ohio Air Show Plane Crash" captures the moment before two lovers witness a flight wreck. "Flower Girl" tells a twisted tale about isolation and broken ambition turning to violent desperation. (Someone, it seems, has been reading Raymond Carver.) Trampoline marks the point at which Henry delves beyond the face of folk tradition and into psychological realism. (RS 732)

RONI SARIG