Like a modern-day Cold Mountain story, the opening track of The Avery Set’s latest album Returning to Steam is an exquisite ballad of love and wanderlust, shimmering with dark bass and an Appalachian roots inspiration. If only the rest of the album could compare.

Recorded in Nashville’s Platinum Lab and released in 2009, Returning to Steam is a well-produced, 12-track effort falling somewhere in the folds of folk rock and country. The Avery Set’s instrumentation is tight and the musicianship is sound, but its potential is packed into one song—“Wandering Shoes,” an indie folk gem sung in Chris Zehnder’s weary-sweet vocals.

After the first track, the album takes an altogether different turn, bearing all the components of country music but never fully convincing the listener. The bar is set high with “Wandering Shoes,” and then the album changes gears completely into a full-blown country voice that doesn’t fit as naturally.

The melodies are far from dull, and the band demonstrates a flair for detail in the lyrics. While tales of moonshine, midnight trains and trophy wives are enticing coming from others, from The Avery Set it sounds like a bit of an act. But if the band can handle their instruments and lyricism as well as they do, they can manage a follow-up album within the same vein as Track 1 of Returning to Steam.