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Empire Builders The Tennessean (three and a half stars) 25 October 2004 As lead singer of groundbreaking country-punk band Jason & The Scorchers, Jason Ringenberg was satisfied with his place as Nashville's premier must-see live performer. Now, with the latest in a string of fine solo albums, he comes on like some kind of globetrotting, hillbilly-inflected Woody Guthrie character: writing about the national conscience, questioning America's place as a force of good or evil and singing about the common people who embody the nation's virtues and vices. Ringenberg wrote much of Empire Builders while touring through Europe and Australia with, as he writes in the liner notes, ''complete strangers berating me about U.S. foreign policy.'' The resulting album isn't an open indictment of those who create that policy (no Bush-bating here), though a cover of Merle Haggard's Rainbow Stew and self-penned songs such as American Question and American Reprieve find him pining for tolerance, and for an end to wars: ''Are we an empire loose and fast/ Or can we find a peace to last?/ Is the answer here at home/ Or buried in a foreign storm?'' he asks at the close of the album, and it's clear he's looking homeward for solutions. As always, Ringenberg's humor and ebullience carry the day. Songs about the brilliance of American guitar hero Link Ray and the goodness of Ringenberg's father praise the kinds of values that are celebrated by members of parties both Grand Old and Democratic. A beautiful busted-love song called She Hung the Moon (Until It Died) is there to remind us of the old Scorchers' substantial chops as a country scribe, and his take on Jim Roll's Eddie Rode the Orphan Train is his most powerful vocal performance as a solo act. Twenty-three years after he arrived in Nashville and founded Music City's greatest-ever rock band, Ringenberg continues to evolve, to probe and to please. Peter Cooper, Staff Writer