Our favorite Texans are back with their spiffy vocal harmonies, polished steel guitar licks, and excellent instrumentals, laced with twisted humor and just-a-hair-short-of-traditional lyrics. With Conrad Deisler and Hank Card on guitar, Tom Pittman on banjo and steel guitar, Boo Resnick on bass, and Korey Simeone on mandolin and fiddle, the group's sound and sensibility is part bluegrass, part country, part Cajun, and pure irreverence. Their 2003 release, Strange Noises in the Dark (Blue Corn), spans a broad spectrum of styles from the tango of the title track (involving the narrator's ex-girlfriend in the apartment next door) to the rousing, upbeat "You Can Eat Dog Food" to the more or less straightforward country of "We Always Fight When We Drink Gin."