The South is the gift that keeps on giving, a boundless source of romance and mystique to artists of all forms that prompts outsiders to relocate and natives to return to all the intrigues encapsulated within Memphis band Dead Soldiers’ All the Things You Lose.

The 12-track LP, released last March, starts off with the cascading flow of violin on “Teddy Gene Mountain.” Rollicking and bittersweet, it sounds like leaving home.

Dead Soldiers hide black pearls of wisdom in their songs, like on “A Matter of Blood,” which offers the observation, It’s a matter of blood/It makes the world go round. Or “It All Goes Black,” which is a reminder of the certainty and equity of death: When you die it all goes black/It don’t matter if it’s murder or if you had a heart attack.

Given the South’s rich geographic imagery, earth and water run rampant through All the Things You Lose, like on “Wicked River” or “Willow Tree,” which starts off sung a cappella.

“Somebody’s Darlin’” is a scene-setting attempt to capture love obliterated by warfare, while  “Don’t Let the Fever Take Me” is riddled with haunting vocal harmonies.

“Church” conjures the image of drinking rotgut whiskey in the neon light and a character drinking gasoline and spitting fire with an auditory and emotional resonance created by surfy guitars and early rock ’n’ roll influence.

And “Martyr’s Park” is a lovely birdsong of soft-breeze harmonica and a banjo weeping over the words: In the tall grass down by the riverside/She’s got flowers growing out of her skull . . . her pale lips won’t tell no more lies/Because she’s got flowers growing out of her eyes.

All the Things You Lose, and the South is irrefutably, historically a land of loss, has well-written, well-played songs of the Southern gothic variety that wouldn’t be out of place sound-tracking an intentionally campy indie film adaptation of a Flannery O’Connor story made by an arty director.

Find the album at deadsoldierstn.bandcamp.com