Brendan Benson finds himself in an enviable spot as he enters the third decade of a remarkably creative, consistently idiosyncratic career an accomplished frontman, musician, songwriter, producer, band member, husband, and dad. Bensons seventh solo album, and first new LP in almost seven years, DEAR LIFE is this consummate polymaths most inventive and upbeat work thus far, an 11-track song cycle about life, love, family, fatherhood, and the pure joy of making music. Produced and almost entirely performed by Benson at his own Readymade Studio in Nashville, the album sees the Michigan-born, Nashville-based artist – and co-founder, with Jack White, of The Raconteurs reveling in a more modernist approach than ever before, fueled by a heady brew of cannabis, hip-hop, and a newly discovered interest in software drum programming. The result is an untapped playfulness that elevates expertly crafted songs like the opener, I Can If You Want Me To, and the first single, To Be Alive, with voluble arrangements, elastic grooves, and incandescent power. Imbued with revitalized ambition and confidence, DEAR LIFE is Brendan Benson at his very best.

While tracks like Dear Life and the ecstatic Richest Man Alive are undeniably animated and even joyful, Benson is quick to note that there’s more going on than necessarily meets the ear. The buoyant melodies and irrepressible hooks are tinted with self-doubt and instinctive irony, their affirmative messages coloured by encroaching middle age and the songwriters own mortality.