It was only recently that Fat Possum Records was a record label that released aging Mississippi bluesmen (R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford) and the quite-likely insane (Hasil Adkins, Bob Log III) exclusively. Lately—after signing a spate of indie-blog types like The Fiery Furnaces and Andrew Bird—it's less easy to tell what you're going to hear when you hold a Fat Possum record in your hand. It's difficult, however, to break the compulsion to place whichever band it is into the label's lineage of obscure American roots music.

As such, it's easy to come into the Mississippi-based Colour Revolt's debut full-length Plunder, Beg, and Curse (Fat Possum, out today) expecting some take on the blues, despite their use of British spellings. The ringing tremolos that open the record dispel this fast, and the band comes in heavy, like a stoner-rock band that's given up on the drones and discovered something approaching melody.

That song, "Naked and Red," keens drunkenly between classic Southern rock, '90s indie rock favorites Built to Spill and Modest Mouse, and some obscure Josh Homme side project, while the band betrays their Deep South heritage in the biblical Gothic of the lyrics ("There goes Adam with the Devil's head / His body's all naked and red ... And I'm still swinging from from the liquor tree / And Eden is a hell of a place").

While Plunder, Beg, and Curse starts off strong, the focus dissipates over the course of the album. Colour Revolt has a tendency to lapse into common indie-isms ("See It," "Innocent and All") and endless riffs, signifying little ("Swamp"). The highlights—most evident when they begin to branch out, like on the just-shy-of-epic closer "What Will Come of Us?" or the gentle "Moses of the South"—are enough to show a promising band looking for the perfect fit for all their urges. While singing about sin is all fine and good, sinning itself makes for better rock and roll.