With each passing year, the rolling stones' "exile on Main Street" looms ever larger over rock & roll. In the mid-'80s, noise punks Pussy Galore recorded their deconstructed version of the album; in the early '90s, postmodern singer/songwriter Liz Phair claimed her debut album, Exile in Guyville, was a song-by-song response to the 1972 Stones LP. And at the end of last year, country rockers Wilco released Being There as a double CD, replicating Exile's ambitious two-LP sprawl.

Now Jay Farrar (who formed the seminal country-punk band Uncle Tupelo with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy) and his band, Son Volt, have captured Exile's elegantly wasted vibe. From the opening twin-guitar attack of "Caryatid Easy" to the four acoustic numbers that shut down the album, Straightaways is Son Volt rocking at their most forlorn.

Farrar deserves most of the credit for Straightaways' feel; he could sing "Sugar Sugar" and make it sound tragic. Through his restricted breaths, Farrar emits a deep, emotive country drawl like a slurring heartland Mick Jagger. Check out "Creosote" – over a sturdy lope, Farrar pines for simpler times when bands like his weren't lost on the road, playing second fiddle to kids goofing around with samplers in their bedrooms. "Born under widespread changes," he sings knowingly.

Unlike their 1995 debut, Trace, on which Son Volt came roaring out of the gate, Straightaways has few brutally loud moments. The album strives for a more intimate back-porch vibe instead. Instrumentalist Dave Boquist, who defined much of Trace's sound, has become the band's secret weapon, a utility player who adds perfect touches of fiddle, banjo and lap steel.

If Straightaways is Son Volt's attempt at re-creating Exile's feel, the Jayhawks' Sound of Lies more heavily recalls Tom Petty's Southern Accents. This is the first album from the Minneapolis quartet after the departure of co-chief-songwriter Mark Olson. Like Petty did with the Heartbreakers on Accents, the Jayhawks' remaining chief songwriter, Gary Louris, has pointed the band more toward his folk-pop preferences and psychedelic experimentation.

Louris' strongest song and Sound of Lies' opening track, "The Man Who Loved Life," begins with a humble admission. "This traveling band was not well received," sings Louris, followed by a gorgeous crescendo of viola and violin. Midway through the album, Louris returns to the frustration that accompanies playing in a semisuccessful band with the non-ironic "Big Star" (which, incidentally, is not a song about the legendary early '70s power-pop band). "I couldn't get arrested if I tried/A has-been at a mere 35," he sings, sounding a little desperate.

A more experimental number, "Poor Little Fish," features shimmering '60s guitar with some spacey e-bow guitar effects underneath. The other attempts at trying something different, however, fall short. "Think About It," "Sixteen Down" and "Dying on the Vine" are all interrupted by psychedelic interludes where the beat breaks down and nothing happens. The band is far more successful when it sticks to the modest Petty-style country rock of "Trouble" and "It's Up to You" that it has been serving up competently for years.

Neither Son Volt nor the Jayhawks are reinventing music as we know it. Nor should they be expected to. The Jayhawks' experimental failings on Sound of Lies underline that fact. Son Volt's adherence to tradition, meanwhile, points out what can be done when you narrow your sights on a target and hit it. (RS 758)

ROB O'CONNOR