The Longtime Goners are probably the most authentic sounding of the local bands signing up for the Americana Revolution, more Hank Sr. and Johnny Cash than Petty or Eagles. So it makes a kind of weird ironic sense that they’re a bunch of kids from the Hinterlands, street buskers who assembled in the Quarter to soak up both booze and authenticity.

They had enough sense to record this indie debut in Nashville, too. But while they demonstrate a noble enough resistance to rock tropes—when they call an original “Hard Luck Woman,” it’s without the slightest nod to either KISS or Garth Brooks—their insouciance often seems slightly contrived, a lesson they’re still working too hard at learning.

Mostly this callowness shows up when they’re channeling their Hank side with singer Ronnie Aitkens, less so when their other vocalist, Pat Reedy, pops in to invoke the spirit of Cash on originals such as the two-step “Down in Pasco.” But it’s a minor quibble, anyway. Harp, dobro, fiddle, and even upright bass, all the elements are here and it’s to the Goners’ credit that they filter out the last half-century of progress so completely. (Find another bunch of honky-tonk upstarts who can insert a trademark Jimmie Rodgers yodel, as Ronnie does, in the middle of a lament like “Canner’s Blues.”)

When they break free of the formula near the end of this debut, their songs start to bleed and not just stomp; the defeatism they play at suddenly turns and begins to stalk them back on “Ragged City Blues” and “Waltzing with the Wind.” The Goners are a breed more rare than they themselves might realize—a bunch of country purists that actually remembers to tell stories.