Thanks to some unfortunate timing, the new John Train CD might draw unwanted comparisons to Neil Young's recent musical epic.

"This album was complete before Greendale came out," says Jon Houlon with a smile. "That bastard scooped us!"

Houlon, lead singer and songwriter of the roots-rocking John Train, really shouldn't worry. Young's ambitious but overblown satire on media bloodlust bears little resemblance to The Sugar Ditch (Record Cellar), a collection of folkish rock tunes not weighed down by a moral agenda or even a plot, per se. "It's more like Ziggy Stardust," he supposes, though there isn't a lot of precedent for this kind of concept album.

The songs don't fit together like puzzle pieces; they come off more like anecdotes passed down through the rumor mill of a small Southern town. The perspective switches on each track as the sad, confusing story of how Randy ended up dead in a ditch by the side of the road slowly unfurls in all directions.

We hear from one suspect, then another, then Randy's dad, then a townie who's been standing on the same corner since Jimmy Carter was president. Houlon's characters are short on details and big on emotion (mostly despair and regret). It's a powerful method of storytelling that leaves it up to the listener to ponder specifically what happened and what's coming.

"Many people can witness the same event and all have different versions and that's kind of the premise of the record," Houlon explains. "It's more like a painting. Just meant to suggest a mystery."

In fact, The Sugar Ditch owes its existence to the painting which graces its cover.

Houlon and his wife, on a road trip to the Mississippi Delta one August, met a young dreadlocked artist named Ronald L. Rainey who was walking down the road in Tunica, Miss. In Rainey's hands was a colorful and crude painting of the town, with something called a sugar ditch front and center. He explained that was the euphemism the locals came up with for the roadside septic runoff area. Inspired, Houlon went with Rainey to the family funeral home and bought a print.

After taking it home, Houlon says the songs came gushing out. "I noticed that there were these same names coming up." It was an organic, uncontrived method to making a concept album.

With this one murder dissected and contemplated from so many angles, it leads the listener to wonder if there's some truth to the story. That, and the fact that a character named "Raney" is a suspect -- too close to "Rainey" for comfort -- is why Houlon inserted one of those "any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead" disclaimers in the liner notes.

After an ominously clanging intro, "The Pulling" starts off the album with what could be modern singer-songwriter stuff: "Watched a bird flying south, and wished it was me/ Then I saw him land, on a falling dead tree." But when it gets to the chorus, Houlon moans like a desperate old bluesman: "So help me along! Help me along!" Then the cymbals crash, the guitars lean into chaos and Mike Brenner's pedal steel repeats a spooky, rhythmic mantra.

From that point on, the album is commanding. Just below the charming imagery and pleasant melodies lie threatening string arrangements and dark lyrical swerves that take the songs somewhere deeper. The title song keeps one foot in the Appalachian spiritual tradition and the other in today's alt-country. The oddly uplifting "What If Ray Charles Weren't Blind?" doesn't seem to fit the plot, but matches Sugar Ditch's prevailing mood of lamentation and horror.

Up until now, John Train has been a respected roots-oriented acoustic band in the local scene. In their 10 years together making music, they've earned a reputation for heartbreakingly personal originals and an enormous arsenal of crowd favorites in Philly bars. They cut their teeth with a years-long residency in the front room of The North Star. They'd play four sets every Wednesday night with no amplification.

That said, The Sugar Ditch, although it's sorta quiet and not too flashy, feels like a breakthrough.

According to Houlon, the band is starting to realize the album is something special. "It's more of an artistic accomplishment," he says confidently. At their CD release show this Thursday the band will open with a Sugar Ditch set and then come back later for music a little more familiar to John Train fans. WXPN has already added the soulful "How Am I Ever Gonna Get Home" to its rotation. "Which I consider an absolute triumph for a band like us," says Houlon.

John Train plays Thu., May 27, 8:30 p.m., $8, Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770.