***1/2 The Freight Hoppers

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

(Rounder)

Back in America's Neanderthal times, before guitars were electrified, the fiddle was a lead instrument for party music brought over from England, Scotland, and Ireland and preserved deep in the southern Appalachians. While Frank Lee's drop-thumb banjo beats clog-dance rhythms behind David Bass's sawing, dervish-like fiddle, this Generation X quartet revives that swirling sound with none of the sorrow of the music's most noted outgrowth, Bill Monroe's bluegrass.

Like Cordelia's Dad, the Freight Hoppers dig deep into our musical roots, but their high spirits contrast with Cordelia's morbid streak. With lyrics grounded in daily life, songs like "Cornbread, Molasses & Sassafras Tea" even give us a glimpse of mountain diets. "Four Cent Cotton" is a moonshine song from the prohibition era. True to country music, this Saturday-night hoedown album closes on a Sunday-morning gospel note -- an a cappella "Bright Morning Star" lined out for congregations too illiterate or too poor to have hymnals.

-- Bruce Sylvester

(The Freight Hoppers play Johnny D's this Tuesday, February 18.)