While "Blue Dogs" could have lifted their album title from the nearest Cheerios box, there's actually a junction in the Carolinas called Round O (great name, population 750), a quiet, tree-lined 'burg that this Charleston-based trio must have zipped past numerous times in their touring back and forth along the East Coast. By some resemblance, the music emanating from that part of the country (Hootie and the Blowfish, Edwin McCain) is a outgrowth of those environs: rural Southern, acoustic-based Americana, with an emphasis on churchly harmonies and uplifting lyrics.

Although "Blue Dogs" share a lot of those traits, among the spate of adult contemporary popsters from that region, there's some alternative turns and subtle funkiness to their music that allows them to sound more sophisticated. Along with the obvious Hootie-isms, "Blue Dogs'" third album is an eclectic treat for fans of Little Feat, Ry Cooder, and Los Lobos. Like those artists, all who helped shape the mix of rock, folk, country, blues and funk into a personal style, "Blue Dogs" combine elements of Tom Petty, Booker T. & The MGs and the Dave Matthews Band into a spellbinding performance of American pop that should be blasting out of every radio by next spring.

Credit Cracker's David Lowery for injecting some much-needed muscle into their folksy musings. Tunes like "Isabelle" and "Carry Your Heart" get a strong dose of Lowery's fatback production touches (upfront drums, funky scratch guitars, swirling Hammond organ), while the band pursues a sentimental, back home drawl for their songs about all of the junkyard dogs, flat-track drivers and Southern sisters that inhabit their world.

This is an album that will prompt a couple of toe-taps of the boot-heel (and with a song like "Cousin Homer's Anything Goes Dance Hall" could there be any doubt?), as well as a hanky wipe over a moist eye (although the maudlin "Bitter End" goes quickly), but it may be the rustic wisdom of "Carolina Heartache" that says it the best. "We've got it pretty good in the South," the band writes in their bio. "Once you've lived here, it's a pretty strong pull. Come see us."

If you can't make the trip, at least hear the soundtrack.