| Thanks to bands with an affinity for the whiskey-soaked Southern rock of yore, the genre is rising again. But this isn't the bayou-loving sound of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynyrd Skynyrd or The Allman Brothers Band. Today's Southern rock is more sedate and less likely to become a protest anthem on a college campus. Band of Horses' newest album, Cease to Begin, is a testament to the softer side of the swamp, with its bluesy ballads, lazy banjos and lyrics about swinging screen doors. The opener, "Is There a Ghost," has the same commercial potential as the radio-friendly track "The Funeral" off their 2006 debut, Everything All the Time. Starting off slow and spooky, "Ghost" crescendos into a guitar-shredding rock song that has more in common with today's indie scene than anything CCR ever wrote. But the album's 21st-century aesthetic seems to drop off after the opening number. "Ode to LRC" is an unabashed love letter to Neil Young's |