After a seven-year songwriting drought punctuated by soundtrack work and a reunion, decided to get back to penning more archly witty, offhandedly trenchant tunes. Booking studio time in advance so he'd have a deadline, he came up with enough good ones to team with ' and longtime musical foil to lay them down on tape. is the resulting album, and it's prime from top to bottom. The songs, sound, and performances all come together with the lyrical simplicity of , the echoing melancholy of , and the cinematic sweep of to form something familiar, yet still vibrant. 's production is a welcome change from the glossy sheen of 's previous solo album; instead, there is an uncluttered, organic feel to the music that suits it well. is in fine voice, having given away none of the tremulous wonder he has always transmitted, now with a little more aged wisdom around the edges. The instrumentation is subtle, with the occasional cheapo drum machine or woody organ bubbling around the edges and 's guitar wrangling sometimes taking center stage. These factors provide a perfect landing spot for the songs. Not only has not lost his knack for a sneaky melody and a bookishly funny couplet, nearly every song has a hook that's hard to detangle or a line that brings a knowing chuckle. "Robin & Richard" definitely has both of those; "The Past Is Our Plaything" does too. The latter also quietly slips in some deeply emotional lyrical content, one of 's favorite tricks. Other songs pull off the same balancing act, delivering exactly what fans of his work would want. A few tunes take little side trips from the established template. The -influenced "Red Hollywood" and "The Last Word" are character sketches of real people, blacklisted actor John Garfield and Karl Marx's daughter Eleanor, respectively, and "Why Are We in Vietnam?" tackles politics in a suitably opaque manner. Along with all the originals, and his band of collaborators recorded two covers -- the lost psychedelic classic "Under Skys" by and "Duchess" by -- and they each fit perfectly with the rest of the album, perched somewhere between the direct approach of and the opaqueness of . The entire album sits comfortably in that spot, much more so than 's first solo album. This is where he should be and where he sounds best. He's had a long career, dotted with highlights that rank among the best music of his contemporaries. is another one. ~ Tim Sendra