(Transmit Sound/Legacy)

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.