Rodney Crowell

At first pass, Sex & Gasoline sounds like the minor stumble Rodney Crowell was due for after putting out arguably the three best albums of his life: 2001’s The Houston Kid, 2003’s Fate’s Right Hand and 2005’s The Outsider. A few obvious gems do jump out from the get-go: the sneering social commentary of the title track (which makes The Outsider’s wicked “Obscenity Prayer” seem tame); the crackling smarts and melodic wonder of “The Rise and Fall of Intelligent Design”; and the devastating heartbreak of “I’ve Done Everything I Can,” as poignant an expression of a father’s love for a daughter as you’re ever likely to find. But elsewhere (“Who Do You Trust,” “Funky and the Farm Boy”), Crowell and producer Joe Henry throw craft aside in favor of ramshackle studio jamming that comes across as a little more half-baked than gloriously freewheeling. But given time, the true understated beauty of the album as a whole begins to reveal itself. The aforementioned highlights hold up as some of the best work Crowell’s ever done, the more awkward missteps find their rhythm, and sleeper tracks like “Forty Winters,” “Moving Work of Art” and “The Night’s Just Right” (a dead ringer for a vintage, “Blackbird”-era Paul McCartney ballad) come to the fore as the moving works of art they really are. Compared to his last three outings, Sex & Gasoline may still be the lowest-octane Crowell release of the last decade, but he’s a long, long way from running on empty. — RICHARD SKANSE