Quintaine Americana SHARPSHOOTER BLUES (Traktor7)

When Godsmack first started playing shows, in the mid ’90s, nobody on the Boston hard-rock scene would have named them most likely to succeed. That honor would have gone to smarter bands like Quintaine Americana (whose fourth and latest full-length puts them one ahead of Sully Erna and company), Only Living Witness (whose Jonah Jenkins is releasing it on his Traktor7 label), and Slughog (whose Andrew Schneider produced it). Like last year’s Dark Thirty (Curve of the Earth), Sharpshooter Blues finds Quintaine scraping away at the scum of their early work: on "Beloved Land," frontman Robert Dixon even makes an emotional, Prodigal Son–style appeal to the Lord. But darkness remains on lurching standouts like "Guns", on which Dixon warns, "I play with guns, girl/I play with fire." He stretches out more than ever on the microphone, and the group shift with ease between roaring speed boogie ("Cannonball") and ominous sludge ("One Way Out"). They also go out with a bang: the CD debut of their punked-up cover of Billy Idol’s "Rebel Yell."

(Quintaine Americana perform this Saturday, June 26, at T.T. the Bear’s Place, 10 Brookline Street in Central Square; call 617-492-BEAR.)