Sweet in the Pants (Bloodshot, 1998)

Used to be they only grew two kinds of bluegrass: the old-timey, harmony-soaked stuff, or something from a more recent vintage, hokey-jokey speed-thrash. The Meat Purveyors prove the ground in the latter genre is still fertile.

The 13 cuts are delightfully off-kilter, and there's nothing soothing or warm about them. Jo Watson has "been drinking herself senseless and turning out the lights," as she notes in "Biggest Mistake," and narrates these hungover tales looking through the wrong side of a shot glass. The Austin band plows through these tales of mornings after, where no one has had any of the sleep that often provides sorely needed perspective. The party never ended and Watson pays the piper every time. Listen for a cover of Merle Haggard's "The Bottle Let Me Down" that teaches us why alcohol never solves anything and yet always brings us back for more.

The Purveyors take you way past last call with unsettling, rollicking, fiddle-laced angst that really seeps under your skin.