Produced by Ryan Adams and possessed of a voice that sounds like a cross between the ex-Whiskeytowner’s countrified croak and Adam Duritz’s melancholy yowl, Jesse Malin arrives fully formed on his solo debut. A former member of the NYC neo-punk band D-Generation, who despite much hype never broke through, Malin hocks his electric guitar for an acoustic here, but though the music sounds bucolic, the themes are anything but. These are urban hymns filled with characters hanging out in lowdown bars, riding the subway through Harlem, and taking wintry walks in Queens. And whereas Ryan Adams tends to meander like an anxious artist who can’t sit still with a uniform style, the 12 tracks on The Fine Art of Self Destruction stick to a unified plan — a kind of update of Johnny Thunders’s acoustic dalliances.

On the rocking " Wendy, " Malin provides the kind of cinematic detail — " She liked Tom Waits and the poet’s hat/’60s Kinks and Kerouac " — that induce you to empathize with the narrator’s loneliness and yearning. Both emotions get a lot of air time on the album, from the arresting chorus of " Brooklyn " to the blizzard of sadness that pervades " X-Mas " to the familial dysfunction of the title track. But " Solitaire " is the disc’s heartwrenching centerpiece, with Malin lurching from a mumble to a shout on the line " I don’t need anyONE! "