OPENING FOR THE Devil's Own at the Rite Spot Cafe, Sara Corrigan, singer from Dolly Rocker, seemed out of place among the slightly brighter than blood red walls and candlelit, speakeasy atmosphere, with her open smile and sheepish, down-home mannerisms. And though I was there to review the more forthright country rock of the Devil's Own, I was glad I was early enough to see Corrigan. Her voice has a refreshing, delicate quality, reminiscent of a light rain shower during a desert stroll. "Won't you miss me?" she sang in a smoky whisper. "Wouldn't you miss me at all?"

I missed her already.

Until the Devil's Own hit the stage – which is no stage at all but simply a space cleared at the front of the room. Regardless, they hit it with the swagger of early Hag looking for a bar fight. "We're the Devil's Own," singer Mark Rodgers, a.k.a. Pissed Pissedofferson, grumbled into the mic. "Girlfriends better break up with your boyfriends."

A guy at the bar had the audacity to inquire, "Why?"

"Why? 'Cause I can fuck her better than you can."

On that note they launched into the shit-kickin' yet smooth "Because of Catherine." They were a little tight at first, but it only took a couple of minutes for the band, and myself, to stretch out a bit. This is country you can bang your head to, but not so much that your cowboy hat'll fall off, and Rodgers's lyrics hit all the right C&W touchstones: heavy drinking, emotional estrangement (often caused by heavy drinking), sleeping pills, and ambulance lights fading into the night. By the third song, the solid two-stepper "Pull up a Door and Leave," I was mentally cataloging my ex-girlfriends, trying to remember what righteous beefs I've got against each of them. "Good God, what the hell was I thinking?" Rodgers intoned in the gravelly, piss-and-vinegar style that earned him his nickname, and I was thinking, "I'm right there with you, brother. You're preaching to the choir."

On "Speaking of Bad Ideas, Jaclyn," Rodgers lamented, "Our second chance was just a chance to fuck it up again." With his rumpled cowboy hat, scruffy beard, and scruffier attitude, he reminded me of the scrappy dog that wouldn't back down in Faulkner's story "The Bear." He was wearing a crucifix around his neck and a pentagram on his belt buckle. When the song was over, a group of staid, button-down types at the front table got up to leave. They thanked the band, and then one of them asked, "Are you from Texas?"

"No, we're from here," Rodgers replied. "Do we look or sound like we're from Texas?" He paused. "We're from this country."

The band escorted the sherry sippers out with "Ellanae," a slow, sad tune with a slight Waco Brothers feel to it. Guitarist Rob Slavin painted a lonely mood with his Gibson, only to immediately obliterate it with the boot-stomping, ass-whomping "What a Lovely Night (for a Bar Fight)," which, with its talk of "blood on the honky-tonk floor," came off as the country spiritual counterpart to the Rezillos' punk classic "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight." Rodgers leaned back and viciously strummed his acoustic, flouncing about like a deranged Muppet, eyes barely visible from under his hat brim, as drummer Xochi pounded away.

All this booze and bitterness might sound cliché, and I guess on some level it is. But if you listen to country at all, you know the power of this music lies in its ability to imbue what under normal circumstances might be construed as hackneyed or trite with so much honest, heart-busting feeling that it transcends the pain of one person and speaks to the pain of everyone, until it touches on a profound, even epic, sense of weltschmerz. Which is a lot of highfalutin talk for tunes that that make you feel strangely joyous when you're cryin' in your beer. The Devil's Own can take you there, and that's why I refuse to refer to this band by any pallid, new-school designators like "Americana" or the dreaded "alt-country." They're not about being clever or artsy; they're about delivering the goods, from the heart and from the gut.

To this end, Rodgers is backed by the bass and vocals of Amy Koucky, booker of the Brokedown Opry series at Hotel Utah. I'd have to say Koucky could stand to bring her singing out of the shadows and belt a tad more. As vocalists, the pair are at their best when they're slightly out of sync, bringing to mind the gloriously off harmonies of John Doe and Exene.