“You should still believe in an endless world/You should blast Young Jeezy with your friends in a parking lot,” Mike Doughty urges young war veterans on “Fort Hood,” the opening track of his new album Golden Delicious, in hopes that their youth has not been lost forever. A threadbare optimism shines through bleak cracks in a song named for the military post that has lost the most soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The former Soul Coughing frontman’s latest opens with three tracks that serve as a hand-clapping exercise in contemplative cheerfulness—a sort of musical awakening. After a very solid opening, Doughty takes a painfully odd misstep in “More Bacon than the Pan Can Handle” before delivering two more good feelings jams including a retooling of his old tune “27 Jennifers.”

The back side of the record is more hushed, less triumphant, and a bit uninteresting, although the sparser instrumentation sounds more comfortable with Doughty’s vocal timbre. Unfortunately, the two albums he’s created since signing to Dave Matthews’ ATO Records have forsaken some of Doughty’s best qualities in the name of slick big studio production.

Listening to his unique voice bare all over a dime store guitar with frets buzzing more wildly than an angry swarm of bumblebees was more captivating than Saturday morning cartoons to a six-year old. Nonetheless, Doughty’s new album has got its standouts and is worth a taste if you dig folky pop rock like the Wallflowers or Sheryl Crow.

Did you love the album? Do you have a album you think Phil should review next? Drop it off in the Sun Star office in Wood Center or email us, we want to hear from you, at fystar@uaf,edu.