Flush with lean, muscular grooves and amp-kicking swagger, Real Animal could very well be the album of his career. It's probably his most stirring collection of songs, having now framed his illness within the context of so much life-affirming exuberance. This isn't to say that everything is sunshine in Escovedo's world: the man hasn't lost the slow ache of his delivery, after all, thankfully. The grit and the human drama so closely associated with his songwriting are still just as bold-strokingly present as ever, but Real Animal seems to survey it all - pain and sorrow included - with a sense of wonder. I suppose this approach has been in place all along, but here on this new album it's honestly quite palpable, and it makes for a riveting listening experience.

Escovedo co-wrote the entirety of Real Animal with fellow Americana pioneer Chuck Prophet - described in the liner notes as "my brother, companero, fellow traveler on the river of soul" - as a musical memoir of sorts, touching upon his record-obsessed youth and leading through his influential career as linchpin of groundbreaking acts such as the aforementioned Nuns, Rank and File, and True Believers before coming into his own as a solo singer-songwriter. There isn't a directly linear storytelling arc to the album, however, and listeners unfamiliar with the full range of Escovedo's multi-decade catalog can just as easily appreciate the songs contained here without the context, but rather as a series of breathless narrations and near-mythic character studies.

Much of the disc bristles with the same street-smart raconteur spirit as quintessential Lou Reed, a quality helped along by the taut musicianship which tends to accompany the penetrating detail - glimpses of Reed's 1989 bulls-eye New York (Sire) popped up from time to time. The big difference, however? Whereas Reed might lean a bit more heavily on the nonchalant end of the continuum when he's not meting out a withering smackdown, Escovedo is unafraid to heap a deeper range of meaning and emotion onto each and every word. There's no sense of distance or detachment here. Instead, Escovedo seems to be reliving all of these episodes in the studio, recounting them as they unfold.

Enlisting visionary producer Tony Visconti certainly didn't hurt, either. The selection of the glam-rock architect responsible for shaping crucial '70s recordings by T. Rex and David Bowie makes perfect sense, given Escovedo's thorough absorption and championing of such motifs over the years. Visconti has channeled Escovedo's long-present bravado into considerably bolder, more unstoppably swaggering gestures than previous producer John Cale was able to coax on predecessor The Boxing Mirror. (Less of a complaint than a mere recognition of apples vs. oranges, however - each is equally tasty on its own merits.)

Witness the lean, sneering garage-rocker "Chelsea Hotel '78," based upon Escovedo's stint as a resident at the Manhattan landmark during the ill-fated stay of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungeon. Spiked with a jittery rhythm and a switchblade-wielding electric guitar chug, heightened by nervously whining violin, the song rushes along with a wide-eyed surveying-the-damage delivery: "I stood out on the sidewalk/ when they busted through the door / in a white tuxedo jacket / a cop had him by each arm/ He loved to show off that thing / Nobody knows for sure / All we know is they found Nancy in her black underwear / dead on the bathroom floor." The words leave Escovedo's mouth in fevered torrents, and it feels very much as if he's back at the hotel, still stuck in the haze thirty years later, when he reaches the breathless chorus: "And it makes no sense / and it makes perfect sense."

"Golden Bear" evokes elements of Bowie's classic "Ashes to Ashes," thanks in part to its spooky use of a tweaked keyboard passage echoing Roy Bittan's signature ghost-piano twinklings on the 1980 melancholic wonder. Much like the Bowie song - which the Thin White Duke has insisted was an ode to childhood (lost) - "Golden Bear" combines recollections of youth with a tangible sense of loss and recognition of mortality. The title is a reference to the nightclub Escovedo used to frequent back in Huntington Beach in the '60s - but any fond recollections are quickly counter-balanced by world-weary sighs of "Golden Bear is burning down / why me?" The song also offers the album's clearest admission of his brush with death on the haunted opening confession, "There's a creature in my body / there's a creature in my blood / Don't know how long he's been there / or why he's after us." Accented by the otherworldly keyboard melody and brooding cello passages, the disclosure is quite affecting.

"Real as an Animal," with its thrashing rhythm and thrillingly degenerate guitar riffing, is pure Stooges primal whomp-and-stomp, and its so-dumb-it's-brilliant chants of "la la la la yeah - animal!" are delicious head-clearing abandon. Opener "Always a Friend" is an exhilarating first statement of purpose for the album, an open-hearted celebration of loved ones, particularly Escovedo's wife, poet Kim Christoff. It's a strident, joyful anthem powered by what very well might be the most undeniably catchy "oh oh, oh oh oh oh" power-pop chorus you've ever heard.

And for longtime fans who have an itch that needs to be scratched deep in their heartstrings, the seamlessly smooth transition of "Hollywood Hills" into "Swallows of San Juan" can't be topped for serious teary-eyed moments. Gorgeous chamber strings and weeping guitar largely inform the former's farewell to LA amid a panorama of unfulfilled dreams, while the "Swallows of San Juan" uses the returning flocks of birds to the San Juan Capistrano mission as a metaphor for the desire to come back to one's roots in order to find what's truly important. When Escovedo coaxes himself forward with the deliberate insistence, "A thousand steps to the water / a thousand steps you must take," it's tough to not get swept up in the violin-filigreed vastness of it all.

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the inspirations for Real Animal: