There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with spare, acoustic songs, but instead of sounding more “authentic,” that presentation highlights everything mannered in Grayson Capps’ music. Songbones is an album he recorded in 2002 at Mike West’s Ninth Ward Picking Parlor with Tom Marron on violin, and that treatment leaves Capps’ exaggerated yowl front and center, sounding like an Appalachian Tom Waits. He’s dramatic and passionate, and when the drama in the lyrics is controlled, convincing. On “I Can’t Hear You,” for instance, the tension and the story sound real. When he liberally sprinkles references to sin and the devil and a crown of thorns in the songs, he sounds theatrical with a vocabulary borrowed from the blues, Kerouac and his musical imitators. This balancing act isn’t new for Capps, but in Stavin Chain and with his band, other musical charms balanced the excessive moments. Here he only has the very sympathetic, tasteful accompaniment of Marron, which isn’t enough. It can never be said too often—rocking is our friend.