This band has pulled off quite a trick " a country-rock fusion that doesn't sound like fusion. It's more like they melted the two styles together and produced an alloy. Fronted by Catherine Erwin and Janet Bean of Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater plays rock songs using mostly acoustic country instrumentation. It all sounds very pretty, but the lyrics and singing are something else. Erwin packs as much world-weariness as your eighty-year-old grandmother into her nasal midwestern twang. There's the country side, but country singers don't write tunes about Amelia Earhart or follow songs glorifying the crazy town drunk with songs glorifying the four horsemen of the apocalypse, or cover Nick Lowe and Conway Twitty back-to-back. Think of Loretta Lynn and Emmylou Harris singing songs written by Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner for Uncle Tupelo, and you'll have a handle on Freakwater. (Pat Anders)