The doom-folk dirt road that once terminated at Nick Cave's cul de sac is now a Southern gothic superhighway stretching from Stagger Lee to the kudzu-covered antebellum plantations of southern ... Minneapolis. Here, local trio Woodcat ploughs a musical cotton field sown with the murder ballads and religious hellfire born from a hardscrabble life in Appalachia. Or Richfield. One of those.

Produced by local Americana enthusiast Robert Skoro, "Woodcat" was apparently recorded inside a fish tank, giving it the claustrophobic and harrowing atmosphere of dread endemic to the genre. There are multiple modern-day touch points for "Woodcat;" what sprang immediately to mind, though, was Christian gloomsters 16 Horsepower crossed with the Violent Femmes' second album "Hallowed Ground," minus the fun songs.

The male vocals eerily ape Gordon Gano with shrieking female counterpoint somewhere at the intersection of Thalia Zedek (Live Skull, Come) and the banshee wails of Bjork. Only on "Ulu" does the conceit become overbearing; the remaining tunes offer surprising twists on familiar themes, including "Dangerous Minds," "Dancin'" and opener "Jack (Call To Arms)."

Note to white musicians: Now that you have slathered electronic beats over every possible genre of music, can we officially declare a moratorium before hip-hop becomes the "Hooked On Classics" of the 21st century? Case in point: The Casiotone sound effects on "Sithe" that serve only to distract.

Sarcasm aside, the intelligent arrangements contrast the backwoods kitsch with "Threepenny Opera"-ish accordion and viola. This is an accomplished and ambitious disc with ideas informed equally by the cabaret of Brecht/Weill and more contemporary chamber acts like Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed YBE!.

"Woodcat" stands as a strong local release for 2006, an appropriate soundtrack to a screening of Robert Mitchum's "Night of the Hunter" or a roll in the sack with your sister.

www.myspace.com/woodcat