**1/2 Jennyanykind

I NEED YOU

(Yep Roc)

During the countless releases and line-up changes and record-label changes since their 1994 debut, Jennyanykind have perfected the art of spacy, spiritual jangle pop, a field they have largely to themselves. The songs on Revelater, the Chapel Hill outfit's 1996 semi-breakthrough release, had the tone and texture of woozy Southern hymns as done by a more alert version of the Black Crowes, or by Palace without all the self-conscious emoting.

Their latest is a rootsy outing with less emphasis on country and jazz and more on Dylan-meets-Pink-Floyd guitar-centric psychedelia than its predecessors. I Need You is also more secular than past Jennyanykind releases (where titles like "Get Right with God" were not unheard of) but equally mystifying. It's still hard to know just what the band are talking about, though anyone who rhymes "evil" and "boll weevil" can't be all bad. By title alone, the instrumental track "Acoustic . . . Ambient" offers as good a description as any of Jennyanykind's occasionally tentative sound. Whether this sounds like a good thing depends on your tolerance for amiable, unyieldingly retro Southern rock that can be immensely appealing even when it's little more than the sum of a sometimes unholy list of influences.

-- Allison Stewart