I’ve long believed that you can measure an artist by the duration of the period during which he or she is making his or her career-defining art. In Freedy Johnston’s case, it was a two-album span – 1992’s Can You Fly and 1994’s This Perfect World. On them, he brought a singer-songwriter’s attention to lyrics to guitar pop, making urgent, catchy rock that reached beyond typical singer-songwriter tropes. On his new Rain on the City, many of the charms of those albums are present, particularly his knack for the well-constructed pop song. Almost every track charms.

But, if you’ve heard Can You Fly and This Perfect World, Rain on the City pales a bit. There’s a clever game being played as Johnston works with a limited vocabulary, creating a note of overlap from song to song, but it’s not so cool that it helps you get around more songs about lonely women, unfaithful women, uncooperative women and the guy who just wants someone he can be true to. He’s enough of a writer to keep the songs from being same ol’ same ol’, but he’s written better songs.