*** Brooks Williams

He explores familiar territory here: this son-of-a-preacher-man is still an existential, gothic loner. Even his love songs are edgy. But on the album's highlight, "Late Night Train," a poignant portrait of a single parent beginning a new life in a new town, he achieves transcendence through empathy, drama, and well-chosen imagery ("Beneath your feet a little brown case/With pictures and letters, it was all you could take/You like to touch it with the back of your heels/Make sure it is there and all this is real").

Credit producer Colin Linden for steering clear of folk-pop clichés and instead playing to Williams's simple, rootsy strengths - a blues-soaked voice and guitar - on a warm, intimate recording with subtle shadings supplied by musicians drawn mostly from Bruce Cockburn's band.

- Seth Rogovoy