Come On Like the Fast Lane

The rock equivalent of the writer’s writer, this band is much loved by their fellow musicians and little heard by most everyone else. Considered up-and-comers when they released 1987’s classic Cuba, they were making a likable, melodic form of alt-country before the term had even been invented. Led by Walter Salas-Humera, different incarnations of the Silos have been plugging away ever since. Yet Fast Lane, the Silos’ 13th album, sounds anything but world-weary: alternating twang and drone, squalling punk-inflected rockers and spacious, layered guitars, these songs are surprisingly noisy and brash from such veterans. Best cuts: the hooky “Tell Me You Love Me”; “Fall On Your Knees,” which sounds like early-‘90s Jayhawks with a grittier edge and the lovelorn “People Are Right,” with its moody wash of steel guitar. The lyrics may not be the deepest around (“She’s kickass”? really?), but their heart is in the right place. “We know something about carrying on,” the boys sing on the triumphant rave-up “Out of Our Way,” and there’s no doubt that’s true.