The artist: Charlie Robison

The album: Beautiful Day (Dualtone)

The spin: For all the talk about this being Robison’s divorce album, it’s the strong singing, the tangle of guitars and the driving production, not the lyrics, that make this his best album to date. On his first album in five years, Robison gets his swagger back. “Feelin’ Good” may come close to trampling worn Pat Green territory, but Rich Brotherton’s mandolin and Robison’s happy-go-lucky vocals, give it the neccessary freshness.

Although Robison addresses the ex most blatantly on the title track, with its telling “I promise you she’s never gonna get fat” line, and most bitterly on “Yellow Blues,” his choice of covers lets Keith Gattis and Bobby Bare Jr. do much of the dirty work. “Down Again,” from “El Cerrito Place” writer Gattis, could be the album’s sharpest focal point, the way Robison’s voice seems to tap into the band’s moody magic.

This is an album you play all the way through. The songs intertwine to tell something about the singer he can’t fully convey in conversation, with the four-song string of “Reconsider,” “Feelin’ Good,” “If the Rain Don’t Stop” and “Middle of the Night” especially good at revealing a peaceful, uneasy feeling.

In the end, though, it’s how it sounds, not what it says, that gives this LP its most therapeutic quality.

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