By Charles Hughes, ArtsEtc. writer

It’s very easy to get the impression that Robbie Fulks doesn’t care. Not in the disaffected, cynical way, but in that devil-may-care fashion that frees him from restraints both internal and applied from the outside.

How else to explain him? How else to explain his brand of punk honky-tonk that accommodates P.J. Harvey covers and heart-rending country ballads in the span of the same set? How else to explain lyrics like “Go to your churches if that’s how you feel/ But don’t ask me to follow, ’cause God isn’t real,” particularly when those lyrics are delivered over a musical arrangement that wouldn’t be out of place on a Loretta Lynn or Stanley Brothers record?

But it’s simply too simplistic to cast Fulks — as many have — as a perpetually smirking jester who attacks his chosen genre (which, for better or worse, is probably best described as country) with Zappa-esque, post-modern deconstruction.

It’s too simplistic, primarily, because of the sheer brilliance of many of Fulks’ songs. Many of them (“Tears Only Run One Way,” “I Push Right Over,” “Heart, I Wish You Were Here”) would have a fine chance of being major country hits if they were recorded by one of Nashville’s fair-haired boys or girls, and the others are no less interesting or memorable.

Fulks can rock as hard as anybody; for proof of that, listeners need only check out “Let’s Kill Saturday Night,” a shoulda-been-a-hit anthem whose absence on rock radio is attributable only to the narrow predispositions of modern formatting. There’s also a surprisingly gentle side to Robbie, as made evident through honestly touching ballads like “Barely Human” or “The Buck Starts Here.”

Then, of course, there are the funny songs, and the best of those — like the aforementioned “God Isn’t Real,” or the sunny suicide anthem “She Took A Lot Of Pills (And Died)” — are actually funny, in the best tradition of country jokesters like Roger Miller and Tom T. Hall (two songwriters who, like Fulks, can juggle the funny and serious effortlessly and with seemingly little self-consciousness).

Fulks last released a record in 2001; more accurately, two Fulks albums — 13 Hillbilly Giants and Couples In Trouble — came out over the course of that year. Couples was his most daring work to date, a loosely structured concept album about the fragility of relationships on which he explored vast and unexpected sonic and thematic territory that led to highlights as diverse as the stomping, angry “Dancing On The Ashes” and the surprisingly soulful, horn-driven “Mad At A Girl.”

13 Hillbilly Giants was a collection of country covers; instead of merely sounding like a vanity or novelty project, Giants may be the most purely entertaining album of Fulks’ career, as he applies his supple voice and sensibility to lesser-known songs from performers like Dolly Parton/Porter Wagoner and Bill Anderson.

Fulks’ 2002 contributions were notable as well. He provided a stinging and funky version of the Johnny Cash hit “Cry, Cry, Cry” on the Cash tribute Kindred Spirits, and the hilariously clever sing-along “Godfrey” — a song about a “sickly, unemployed, amateur children’s magician” — to the fantastic kids’ album The Bottle Let Me Down: Songs For Bumpy Wagon Rides, produced by Fulks’ label, the mighty Bloodshot Records.

He has also gotten in a surprisingly public and typically snarky mini-feud with Ryan Adams, after the golden-boy rocker berated a fan who requested “Summer of ’69,” a song by 1980s rocker Bryan Adams, at a Nashville show in 2002. Fulks promptly began offering free merchandise to any fan who requested a Bryan Adams song at a Ryan Adams show.

In live performance, like the show coming up at the Harmony Bar Friday night, Fulks and his band seem almost uncontrollable. Bounding around the stage with near-spastic abandon, hammering chords (and the occasional choice lead) with reckless disregard for his strings or fingers and utilizing the full range of his startlingly flexible vocal range, Fulks is a smart-ass dervish, whose antics would get obnoxious if not for the quality of performance and material (as well as the hard-driving force of his band).

Never failing to turn it up or slow it down, Fulks’ shows — much like his albums — showcase endless variety and invention (he just finished recording an album of Michael Jackson covers, for example, which this writer can’t wait for).

Madison is one of Fulks’ favorite towns, and the enthusiastic response he gets only adds to the fervor and fun created by each of his performances. Check him out; it’ll be good for you.

Robbie Fulks plays at the Harmony Bar, 2201 Atwood Ave., Friday night. For more information, call 249-4333.