In case you were wondering, there is still great music being made in Athens, Georgia. If your iPod is full it might be time to delete Tres Hombres and make room for something new, fresh, and very good.

Like many of today’s new bands, New Madrid does not fit neatly into any single pigeonhole. Their Bandcamp tags include Alternative, Cosmic Americana, Southern Noise Rock, Post-Folk Regional, Cosmic Boat Swirl, Ambient, and Dirt Shine Rock. If I had to put New Madrid into a single genre, it would be “Southern Dream Pop.”

Yardboat, the band’s first full-length album, is available for download at yardboat.com. Name your price, anything over $10. You can download two songs, “Fountains of Gold” and “Summer Dream Sigh” for free. But c’mon, buy the whole album. Too many bands are having to give away their best stuff just to get enough buzz to be booked for a $300 show in a bar with a drunk sound guy. If you don’t have $10, go out and collect Coke bottles and cash ’em in at Krogers. What? They don’t do that anymore? Jeez no wonder this country is going broke! OK, well, buy what you can. It’s Good Music.

“Fountains of Gold” starts with a solid blues-rock riff, softens it up, throws in clean-n-fuzzy guitars, and layers on one of the best vocals I’ve heard lately.

“Summer Dream Sigh” is six-minutes of wonderfully layered guitars, harmony vocals, and a blending of rock, country, and jazz.  Like “Fountains of Gold,” this is one of those songs that sounds instantly recognizable and at the same time sounds completely fresh. I hear snatches of “Hang on Sloopy,” “Ramblin’ Man,” and “Jessica.” I’m tempted to say something lame like “think Allman Brothers Band meets Pink Floyd with vocalists who can actually sing,” but that doesn’t do the song justice. Let’s just say, “This is Good Music and you will Feel Good when you listen to it.”

“Country Moon Pt. I” showcases New Madrid’s secret weapon: the vocals.  There is something uniquely Southern about the delivery and the harmonies, and yet there isn’t a shade of twanginess. When I hear this song I remember riding my bike down a gravel road in Tennessee.

Like any Southern band worth an RC Cola and a Moon Pie, New Madrid isn’t afraid to stretch things out. Four of the album’s eleven songs are over five minutes, and the entire album is just short of an hour. So you will get your money’s worth (see Paragraph 3).

For more videos, downloads, band news, and show dates, visit the New Madrid home page.

Yardboat is available on iTunes.

Postscript: I’m trying to avoid playing Name the Influences. But I’m guessing that the boys have given Mac Gayden’s Skyboat album a few spins. No? They haven’t? OK, my bad.