You just never know what Jay Farrar’s gonna do. When the guitarist/singer/songwriter reactivated the dormant Son Volt name two years ago with an entirely new lineup, the band issued the politically charged, guitar-strewn manifesto Okemah and the Melody of Riot, which won mass accolades and proved the band’s best front-to-back release since its 1995 debut Trace. He was back but under the radar in 2006 with the oddly titled Gob Iron—perhaps part of the reason a good record may have gotten lost in the shuffle—doing bleak, stripped folk. Within six months of that, isn’t he back again with Son Volt and with a full-length that expands on his tried and true strain of Americana? The Search isn’t a complete 180 from the tube-amp-blasting agit-pop and folk of Okemah, but an interesting sharp left turn heavy with pianos and keys and that displays broader textural experimentation. The horns at the hook of “The Picture” sound like they came straight from a Stax studio, with the beat hitting a genuine Southern soul chug as Farrar registers distaste for the military-industrial complex, singing, “War is profit/Profit is war.” Not only is this a welcome departure for Son Volt, it’s the best song Farrar has made in years. There’s flirtation with Eastern tones and ragas on songs like “Slow Hearse” and “Action.” “Circadian Rhythm” is a bridled bit of Crazy Horse rock. With Shannin McNally, Farrar sings of wonderfully, weary road burn on the duet “Highways and Cigarettes.” On The Search, Son Volt’s continued reinvention is subtle and ultimately engrossing.

Great expectations ain’t just a book by Dickens. It’s also the inherent problem in putting out a record the world has waited more than 30 years to hear. The Stooges were the razor-wire punk rock forebearers of ear-shattering, dark psychedelia, pulled from the woods of the Michigan garage scene and dropped into the sunshine damnation and good vibes bad scene of Los Angeles circa the late 1960s. They made three records that set the scene for every decade to come, which meant they were absolutely doomed. Those albums sold next to nothing during the band’s lifespan and their live shows either found singer James “Iggy Pop” Osterberg getting beat up by bikers or cutting himself open and smearing peanut butter on himself. They “failed” in their day but managed to earn that rare mantle—the act that continues to influence profoundly those who followed, from the Pistols to Nirvana through White Stripes. So all these years later, surviving members Pop and drum and guitar siblings the Asheton brothers impressed a Minuteman (Mike Watt) into service and decide to pick up where they left off. So do the Stooges, in 2007, expect to pack a wallop to match the searing of “Search and Destroy” or the crazed, snotty nihilism of “1969”? Of course, those great expectations have us hoping, but realism must take root. It’s hard to give danger to strangers when you’re about to hit retirement age. All the same, this is still essentially the original Stooges and there’s certainly more piss and fire here than there ought to be when you consider the self-destruction they made their trademark all those years ago. Put to tape with the aid of recording maestro Steve Albini at his Chicago studio, Electrical Audio, with The Weirdness Iggy and company prove they can still pull it off. This is a fluidly brash and bratty 12-song heavy that bursts with Pop’s innate art of confrontation and Ron Asheton’s dagger-like licks. The purity of the Stooges circa now is that they aren’t trying to be something they’re not. The Weirdness is Stooges through and through: totally primal with caveman stomp beat lyrics decidedly simplistic. (A sample: “I’m deep fried/Refried/Stir fried” from the appropriately titled “I’m Fried.”) The three-chord abandon of “Free and Freaky” is like a manifesto here, sounding a bit like their Detroit brethren of long ago. “Trollin’” is pure Iggy—detached, just a little angry, hungry for a good time and dangling it in yer face. Saxophonist Steve Mackay, an integral part in Funhouse’s landmark avant jazz freakout factor, rejoins too, notably adding his magic to “She Took My Money” and “Passing Clouds.” The ultimate beauty here is that the Stooges manage to come off as the outsiders looking in and not like some returning legends. Expectations be damned!