Consumer Guide Album

Rhett Miller: The Dreamer [Maximum Sunshine, 2012]
Miller fashions his excellent tunes within such a narrow melodic compass that it always takes too long for the new ones to get sorted, and the Nashville-trad self-production on his fourth solo album doesn't sharpen their outlines much. But as usual the songs come clear eventually, starting with a Ben Kweller collab bearing the aptly ominous title "Lost Without You." It's not the winner here because the lyric could be stronger, which cannot be said of "Complicated Man" or "As Close as I Came to Being Right," not to mention the miserable "Out of Love." Consider those titles. That's why I said ominous. B+