John Doe: Forever Hasn't Happened Yet

(Herald rating: * * *)

Former frontman for the LA punk band X, Doe has created a singular solo career as an alt.rock/alt.country singer-songwriter. His last album, Dim Stars, Bright Sky, should have seen him get the long overdue acclaim he deserves (guests included Jakob Dylan and Juliana Hatfield). This follow-up has the feel of a casually tossed-off collection (a tidy 30 minutes) but repeat plays reveal its uneasy charms: Twin Brother with Grant Lee Phillips has an eerie back-porch blues feel and disconcerting lyrics about a lost brother. Hwy 5 with Neko Case rides some electronic percussion before soaring on power chords and brief, angular, free jazz piano; and he teams up with New York punk-folk poet Cindy Lee Berryhill for the oddly surf-music-infused Your Parade and the dark acoustic ballad Repeat Performance.

She's Not is a moving solo song of yearning for an unattainable lover; the opener, The Losing Kind is a Doors-like blues, and Heartless (both with Dave Alvin and Phillips) is an angry slice of thunderous and jagged blues-pop. Rugged nuggets all of them.

This is deliberately rough around the edges in production and presentation, too short, and certainly not the album Dim Stars, Bright Sky was. But the few who have followed Doe's wayward career will have their high opinions of him confirmed.

Label: Southbound