Dorkily clever wordplay aside, could have named his third album (the first to be co-credited with his brother ) simply "New York City Songs," or even just "Lower East Side Songs." The dozen numbers here ground their inward-gazing personal musings within a highly resonant, perceptive, and fairly conflicted portrait of their particular time and place -- Manhattan and Brooklyn hipsterdom in the early 21st century -- offering the commingling of topical specificity and broadly relatable observations on human experience which marks the best so-called anti-folk music. There's a slightly off-putting duality to the album in that the five songs co-written by the two brothers, which are spaced evenly throughout the track listing, are a good deal louder and more raucous than s typically spare, acoustic solo numbers. They're also slighter pieces of songwriting --even if the punk rock storytelling of and and the bar-scene snapshot do a nice job of setting the scene and counterbalancing s habitually self-directed focus. As with any other unvarnished encounter with another human's psyche, there's the potential here for considerable annoyance as well as considerable charm, but has a particular talent for dwelling on his own neuroses without coming off as simply whiney or indulgent: his ruminations always blend in enough sweetness, whimsical humor, or heartfelt honesty to feel endearing rather than alienating. To be sure, there are also some brighter patches -- a sort of mystical allegory about the sources of inspiration; the wryly touching with its tender observations on the urban ritual of changing apartments ("you've swept and mopped more today than the entire time that you stayed"); the good-natured brotherly nuttiness of -- but by and large this is a decidedly neurotic album. Still, as trying as it can be to hear to bleat on monotonously about his insecurities (as on the self-explanatory ), they're also the well spring for some of the richest material of his career, including the painfully honest relationship saga and, especially, the brilliant -- this album's centerpiece and finest offering by far -- which spins a (possibly imagined) sighting of the titular indie folk godhead (on the L train) into a hilarious and insightful rant on fame, artistry, and aspiration, with a surreal, darkly comic finale. That tune on its own is enough to make the album worth checking out, but there are at least another handful of songs strong enough to make it a keeper. ~ K. Ross Hoffman