Orville Peck, “Bronco.”

Orville Peck rides back into town on Bronco and the way he tells it, the trail from his acclaimed 2019 debut was a bumpy ride. While challenged by both depression and struggles in his personal life, Peck’s skyrocketing career ran straight into COVID. In the void where his 2020 tour was supposed to be, he found the space to confront some long-neglected pain, ultimately breaking free to create what he describes as his most authentic album to date. Despite the signature mask and enigmatic secret identity, Peck hides nothing on Bronco. These 15 songs are equal parts rollicking and revealing. Entertainment? Absolutely. But it’s no act.

Lead single “C’mon Baby Cry” gallops like the Righteous Brothers riding neon horses into Phil Spector’s pool party. The sweeping falsetto in the chorus is majestic and irresistible. By the second time around, you’ll likely be trying–and likely failing–to hit the notes with him. It’s a remarkable single made all the more potent by the fact that it addresses toxic masculinity not with a challenge, but with an embrace.

In the video, Peck delivers the lines “I can tell you’re a sad boy just like me/ Baby, don’t deny what your poor heart needs” to a stoic man in a cowboy hat who later breaks down in tears surrounded by drag queens and a shower of silver glitter.

“Daytona Sand” opens the album with Peck looking back on a doomed relationship with a shrug, telling a “big blonde” he met in Florida to “hit the road” over a sparkling arrangement. You can hear surf guitar winding between Phil-Spector-like descending glockenspiel running over a galloping cowboy rhythm.

“Curse of the Blackened Eye” is one of Bronco’s most effective moments. Peck croons while past trauma “follows (him) around” like a ghost. His voice glides from lower register baritone in the verse to a coyote-like falsetto howl in the chorus. It culminates with exhausted acceptance as Peck sings, “It ain’t the letting go, it’s more about the things that you take with.” Because his pain is a safer companion than the man from whom he had to escape.

“Outta Time” is a sun-soaked 1970s California country rock recollection of tour hookups and getting dragged into parties where he responds, “A little less conversation, please” to a woman who “don’t like Elvis.” Not surprisingly, those would be fightin’ words for Peck. The shadow of The King looms larger over Bronco with Peck’s frequent low register mumbles and stutters to the gold lamé outfit he wears on the cover.

Later, “Any Turn” takes more than its share of inspiration from Johnny Cash’s rendition of Hank Snow’s country classic “I’ve Been Everywhere,” with rapid-fire snapshots of road life complete with sex, drugs, boredom, writer’s block and pancakes. Both are worthy entries into the pantheon of “road songs” and cruise along with swagger and confidence, punctuating the moments between the more ambitious songs on Bronco like the Glen-Campbell-meets-Neil-Diamond-style epic “Trample Out The Days” and the aching beauty of “Kalahari Down.”

Cinematic references to desert mountains, Sophiatown and the “circling the veldt” establish South Africa (where Peck lived for a time) as a backdrop to the heartbreak in “Kalahari Down.” The song starts with a sparse lonely harmonica but builds toward a cinematic payoff complete with sweeping strings before Peck audibly chokes back tears as he delivers the final lines. On an album packed with emotional honesty, this raw and revelatory moment is especially vulnerable.

Even when Peck drops the occasional straight-faced “yippie-yo-ki-ay” or “saddle up and ride,” it feels more like autobiography than allegory. The concept of an openly queer country star bucks against outdated country heteronormative archetypes, but that subtext is only a tiny fraction of what gives Bronco songs so much depth and authenticity. At moments it’s over the top, but Bronco’s indulgences are repeatedly reigned in by Peck’s formidable songwriting skills that navigate the space between self-aware camp and raw emotion. Bronco is one hell of a ride.

Follow Skott Bennett at Twitter.com/skottbennett.