MARK COLLIE / “Mark Collie” MCA

*** What we could have here is a Travis Tritt with sensitivity, or maybe a Billy Ray Cyrus with a brain.

Despite some generic-sounding material, the young Tennessean with the sex-symbol looks restores the promise generated by his 1990 debut “Hardin County Line” after a disappointing follow-up.

Collie offers a pretty good self-summation in the final song, “Hillbilly Boy With the Rock ‘n’ Roll Blues.” Rockabilly courses through the album’s blood, yielding exercises in a variety of Elvis genres and giving it a root-bound feel.

But Collie’s conviction and urgency keep it vital rather than retro--on the ominous opener, “Trouble’s Comin’ Like a Train,” he takes the lyrics in big, Johnny Cash-size gulps, putting plenty of emotional weight behind the title refrain.

Collie is most intriguing when he links his rock instincts with forward-looking country-pop strains. The recent hit “Even the Man in the Moon Is Cryin’ ” evokes the new breed of winsome, hook-filled country embodied by Hal Ketchum. Best of all, “Is That Too Much to Ask” transcends country’s working-man-anthem tradition to become a defiant lament for all dashed dreams.

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