That Portland singer/songwriter James Low has acquired a Western Front for the fourth release of his recording career might imply a battleground; instead, much is quiet on an album entrenched in its protagonist’s chronic personal struggles. The dusty hush is a lack of vigour, not valour: Whiskey Farmer is not an album short of spirit. What’s scarce is the spark of spontaneity.

The title track’s central tenet is unfortunately flimsy. “A whiskey farmer trying to grow champagne” is less redolent of Guthrie’s dustbowls than Spike Milligan’s boy on the burning deck. What you’ve done, oh titular farmer, is confuse barley, or perhaps the Oregon cornfields, with the vineyards of Marne. Nevertheless Whiskey Farmer is an agreeable headphone guest – harmonious, sensitive and not loitering too long. Were it more hale or hubristic, more sombre or bitter, it might seem more than merely sympathetic, however. TJLWF, as everybody’s calling them, too often dish out run-of-the-mill when death-of-the-miller might have added some meat. The band have the right ingredients: this is dependable and unostentatious indie Americana, and Low’s voice, bolstered by befitting instrumental support including pastel pedal steel, sounds bolder than before – but it’s still short on seasoning.

The first four songs, particularly the mildness of ‘I Would Have You’ and quietly reflective ‘Thinking California’, help to craft a comforting record with a comfortable resonance, even if it doesn’t over-stimulate the synapses. The band describe their sound as “country-infected”, rather than inflected, which makes one wonder what might have been without the pox. In fact, there is more danger that, done straight, this music sounds cured, if not cliched – even down to the endearingly, atypically perky ‘Medicine Show’ with its gypsies, ditches and heavy roads.

Lead singer Low – adorned with tie and briefcase in the cover art’s desolate terrain – describes his creation as a sort of drinking, working everyman. This concentration on the title character creates a sense of voyage, a journey through pathos and temptation, epiphanies and desire, which, were it not anchored by the concept, would otherwise be absent. The path is so well-trodden that the illusion of discovery feels almost set up. Whiskey Farmer is a strong step forward for its creators but it is a pilgrimage, not an odyssey. Though authentic and sporadically affecting, the album suffers from its borrowed themes. Slow closer ‘A Little More Time’, all sedate drumbeat and whining organ, is not the only song that might be moving, if familiarity hadn’t deadened the narrative.

Nevertheless the vision is well executed, eight effortlessly listenable songs to add to country’s ever-swelling annals of frustrated farmers and lovelorn itinerants. It also invites unfavourable comparison with another “low” band – The Low Anthem – whose own brand of folky Americana can saunter, stagger and surge at intervals. If you don’t mind trading edge and idiosyncrasy for affinity and lull, this record offers some rather tender moments. If not, file under “promising” for now.