***1/2 Peter Stone Brown

UP AGAINST IT

(Tangible Music)

Loss and impending mortality haunt Peter Stone Brown's Up Against It, an unassuming, quietly brilliant piece of Americana. Recorded in Austin with some of that town's top musicians, the CD takes you through territory where "all the walls crumbled and all the dreams died," where a man can't even get out of town on a train because "the train don't leave here anymore."

But there's transcendence in these dark shadows. It's found in the most basic gifts: in creation ("Here on Earth") and in the meeting of two hearts ("Walkin' in My Sleep," "Say Yes"). Transcendence is also found in the music and the performance. This fortysomething former DJ, rock critic, and longtime fixture on the Philadelphia club scene has distilled a lifetime of exposure to folk, rock, country, and R&B into a hook-laden collection of Dylanesque roots rockers and ballads that are as much celebrations of human resilience as they are cries of pain. It's a trick as old as the blues, and Peter Stone Brown -- whose vocals naturally blend urgency and world-weariness -- knows how to play it.

-- Seth Rogovoy

(Peter Stone Brown plays at the Kendall Café in Cambridge this Friday, March 28. Call 661-0993.)