's songwriting often walks a narrow line between intelligent satire and willful cruelty, and that line was never finer than on the album . had long displayed a fascination with the American South, and was a song cycle where he gave free rein to his most imaginative (and venomous) thoughts on the subject. The album's scabrous opening cut, is guaranteed to offend practically anyone with its tale of a slow-witted, willfully (and proudly) ignorant Southerner obsessed with "keeping the n-----s down." is more polite but hardly less mean-spirited, in which an impotent hick marries a circus freak; if the song's melody and arrangement weren't so skillful, it would be hard to imagine anyone bothering with this musical geek show. But elsewhere, displays a very real compassion for the blighted history of the South, leavened with a knowing wit. is a funny but humane tale of working-class Alabamians, and are intelligent and powerfully evocative tales of the deep South in the depths of the Great Depression, and is cheerful on the surface and troubling to anyone willing to look beneath it. Musically, dives deep into his influences in Southern soul and also adds potent country accents (with the help of pedal-steel guitar) while dressing up his songs in typically expert string and horn arrangements. And assumes each character, either brave or foolish, with the skill of a gifted actor, giving even his most loathsome characters enough depth that they're human beings, despite their flaws. is one of 's finest albums; it's also one of his most provocative and infuriating, and that's probably just the way he wanted it. ~ Mark Deming