Black Crowes Have the Flair, Lack the Magic : **1/2 THE BLACK CROWES, “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion”, <i> Def American</i>

Nice title. Like just about everything else having to do with the Black Crowes, it’s borrowed, of course--from a hymn book the band came across.

The Atlanta band doesn’t have to venture quite as far afield from rock ‘n’ roll for the other elements it lifts here. On “Shake Your Money Maker,” the group’s 1990 quintuple-platinum debut, the Stones (and, if just by inevitable extension, Aerosmith) were the money-makers whose vintage style was most obviously being mined.

For this follow-up, the Stones comparisons so readily invited last time may drop off--in favor of Faces citings, thanks to an extra dollop of soul in the sonics and an increasingly inescapable vocal resemblance on singer Chris Robinson’s part. This may be the best-sounding album Rod Stewart hasn’t made in two decades.

And, as far as sound alone goes, “Companion” is as refreshing as it is unoriginal, reviving a style about due for resurrection. It’s a much more relaxed recording than its predecessor, with more slow and mid-tempo numbers, more female choruses amid the riffing, more surety all around.

Though not so much Southern rock as it is a savvy recollection of the famous early-’70s sound of English blues-rockers waxing Southern, the new album has more regional flair, all the way to the closing reinterpretation of Bob Marley’s “Time Will Tell” (the one non-original tune) as an after-hours barroom spiritual.

Still, there’s something else not in abundance here that’s missed a lot more than originality: magic. Underneath the grooves, the likable gargle of Robinson’s soul-man crooning, there’s no real spirit energizing it to draw you back the way the great albums do, no memorable lyrics, certainly nothing approaching a classic song. This is a nice, empty one-night-stand of an album, but no longtime “Companion.”

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four (excellent).