Baton Rouge native Benjy Davis is only 21 and he already has a list of songwriting accomplishments behind them that most rockers don’t assemble in a lifetime. His anthem “New Orleans” defined the sweet release of teen freedom and gave kids from the South words and sounds to define life by like they haven’t seen since the best days of the Drive By Truckers and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Davis also peers into that same darkling dusk that the emo boys preen before but he never whines, he’s not some sniveling brat going “woe is me” at the terrible world but a pissed-off sensitive soul who’s going to fucking DO something about it.

“Who’s to say what you can do if you do what you love?” he challenges his listeners on the compelling argument against conformity “Somebody Else,” a great track off the new album. “So get off your asses and prove what you’re capable of.”

Judging from the popularity of the Benjy Davis Project on the southern club circuit, his message is getting through. The Angie House, the third album from the Benjy Davis Project, is named after the small town of Angie, Louisiana where it was recorded, and the location has cast its vibe on this outstanding music just as Big Pink did for the Band and Hell House did for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Davis and his excellent band handle a range of styles drawn from the songwriter’s hook-centered pop sensibility, with lead guitarist Jonathan Lawhun slamming melodic home truths into every riff.

“Soul On Fire” is one for the ages, a song dedicated to the classic rock that inspires Davis. It’s about letting it all hang out on the open road, “singing along to songs Songs that set my soul on fire… Pink Floyd, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Jimmy Page and Johnny Cash everyone that I admire Stevie Ray, Hendrix and The Byrds, John Lennon…” Davis has added his own distinctive voice to that canon, and now his songs are lighting those flames in other souls.