volunteer firefighter and EMT in his small Wisconsin town — writes about his momentous 40th year. It's a time when he restores his 1951 International Harvester pickup truck to working order and falls in love, for real.

Cassadaga is fully formed, a considered synthesis of the catch-as-catch-can expansiveness of Oberst's Lifted-era bands with the country tendencies that have always undergirded his Middle American vocals. Longtime enabler Mike Mogis is everywhere, playing ten instruments all told. Nate Walcott mans multiple keyboards and arranges strings and woodwinds, which get pretty baroque on "Cleanse Song." The last track features just Oberst on guitar and synthesizer with some femme backup. There are more voice-overs, but nonetheless there's a stylistic spine here. Oberst's prog and jam-band tendencies are both subsumed by a sensibility that's Americana in a winning, all-embracing sense. Americanapolitan, let's call it.