*** 1/2 THE O’KANES “Imagine That” <i> Columbia</i> :<i> Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to five stars (a classic). </i>

Singer-songwriters Jamie O’Hara and Kieran Kane--they of the sadly neglected Everly Brothers school of male harmonizing--make it clear they’ve heard every country-music cliche in the book, but they do so by scrupulously avoiding predictability at every turn. The crowning example on their third album is the closing cut, “This Ain’t Love,” which quickly deflates all those puffy romantic truisms about the guy who feels “hollowed out inside” when his love isn’t around. Best of all, on this album O’Hara and Kane have found their own collective voice as writer-performers, delivering on the promise of two preceding albums in which their history as tunesmiths-for-hire frequently was evident. No all-encompassing socio-political messages here, just 10 songs--and not a weak cut among them--that delve as close to the human heart as you can get without a scalpel.