The new album by Kevin Kerby + Battery.

LITTLE ROCK — A collection of tunes a respected music blog was calling the best music moments of 2009 (so far) recently found its way into my iTunes. It's good, filled with nuggets both familiar (Crocodiles' "I Wanna Kill"), wonderfully weird (Suckers' "It Gets Your Body Movin'") and clearly left field (tUnE-YaRdS' "Sunlight"). But I don't know if any equals the majesty of Kevin Kerby + Battery's "You & Your Chemical Smile," the second track from the former Mulehead leader's Beautiful & Bright. And in the wonderfully weird and actually good department, none of the tunes can touch Beautiful & Bright's terminus: the magnificent, countryesque "The Devil Is Real," with its Phil Spector Wall of Sound drums and Beach Boys wind chimes enveloping the simplistic truth: "The devil is real and he is everywhere/From the drugs that you take to the women that you share."

Are the two tracks the best moments on Beautiful & Bright? It's debatable as the 10-tune album is a gut punch of pure rock 'n' roll (for the most part) filled with lumbering rhythms, chugging guitar riffs and lyrics such as "Tall tales from the bottom of my lungs/Last trip from my bifurcated tongue/And I feel like a string that won't be strung/And I'm soon to be replaced" ("Soon To Be Replaced").

The sophomore solo release by Kerby but the first with Battery - Geoff Curran (drummer in Mulehead) on guitar, Joshua Bentley (ex-Il Libretina) on bass and Marcus Lowe (ex-Il Libretina) on drums and backing vocals - is an album of honest songwriting from the 39-year-old Little Rock resident. The basic tracks were recorded with the full band at Lowe's house and the overdubs (lead vocals, backing vocals, keyboards and some solos) were recorded at Curran's house with Curran mixing the record, and North Little Rock producer Barry Poynter mastering it.

The Good: Although Kerby wrote most of Beautiful & Bright on an 1969 Gibson LGO acoustic, gone is the folk rock of Kerby's solo debut, 2006's Secret Lives of All Night Radios. The new sound of Kerby is a harsher, tougher tone. The 10 songs on the album possess a classic, lived-in feel.

The new rugged Kerby sound is immediately evident on the album's first three tunes. "Beautiful & Bright" is meat and potatoes rock 'n' roll that kicks off with a crunchy guitar riff mirroring Neil Young's mid-1990s work and with a biting, uncoiling guitar solo. But for its tough exterior the tune is awash in stunning organ work and hopeful lyrics.

"You & Your Chemical Smile" is a grinding anthem with a dirty, foot-tapping riff reinforced by acoustic guitar, beautiful harmony vocals from Bentley and scathing lyrics - "Well, you're too dumb to run/And you're too afraid to fight" - and "Last Word On A Situation" follows its opening, stabbing guitar riff with a loud and upfront snare drum crashing like a bomb blast with each beat. Just as flammable are the rebuking lyrics from Kerby: "But I am not a thief/But I've profited from thievery/I overpaid the extras ... Keep my name outta your mouth/And I'll keep yours out of mine/I'll just call you all/The ones I left behind."

"Soon To Be Replaced" begins with a riff reminiscent of the late-1970s Stones before a galloping beat grabs the reins and steers the tune into cranked-up country rock territory, and "The Great Swimming Pool Debate" is an acoustic lullaby about the simpler innocence of youth with its neighborhood bottle rocket wars and a treehouse full of girlie magazines that provided Kerby the foundation for his life: "It was a sweet waste of time/And that's how I built my soul."=

The Bad: There's not much wrong with Beautiful & Bright; Kerby and company have created an album that's dynamic and exciting, a solid slice of Arkansas rock 'n' roll in the 21st century. The one misstep is "Dip It In Shellac," a slow, pondering, Moog-fueled tune that predates the Beautiful and Bright sessions. It's hymnlike, but more slumbering rock than lumbering rock 'n' roll.

Must haves: "Beautiful & Bright," "You & Your Chemical Smile," "Last Word On A Situation," "Soon To Be Replaced," "The Great Swimming Pool Debate," "The Devil Is Real"

Rating (out of five): 4 1/2