PACKING an emotional punch is the essence of Americana.

Some might hear grown men moaning, but peek behind the pedal steel and there are life-affirming insights for those who care to listen.

This mini-album and DVD is acutely observed, and mercifully without the irony that dogs so much US songwriting.

Richmond Fontaine are a more literate Wilco and hoping to follow their success.

Acoustic storytelling song is alive and well in main-man Willy Vlautin's care; Moving Back Home #1 is a good example of a well-thumbed subject getting a slightly new twist.

The enigmatic coda to the final track whets the appetite.

Peter Case is perhaps too raw for popular consumption, but would make a fitting subject for a film, on the road as an itinerant songwriter since the early Seventies.

Only fleetingly in the public eye, Case's tribute to a bluesman contains original songs and is only loosely blues.

There's a unity to the material, most of which returns to the same well-travelled subjects: justice, faith, life on the road and looking back.

The album is beautifully recorded, and guitar players will be able to pick out every note.

In the past, Case has admitted that his concerts eclipse anything he commits to record, and this honest and heartfelt music, like most Americana, would be better live, but this album will more than tide us over.