Dwight Yoakam, “Brighter Days.”

For the first time in nine years, Dwight Yoakam has returned with new material. Brighter Days is a 14-track offering with 11 originals  and three artfully made covers. It’s a showcase of his unique rock-country style and his songwriting ability.

Yoakam has been a country music mainstay since the late ’80s, enduring because of his authenticity and insistence on following his own path. Written over the course of the last three years and self-produced, it’s a great showcase for everything that’s made him beloved.

He brings back the rockabilly (“Can’t Be Wrong”) and punk energy that set him apart from contemporaries. On rocker “Wide Open Heart,” he sings of falling in love with a girl with a wild, adventurous spirit and eyes set on the horizon. Naturally, he compares her to a car—a fast one—to which he tries to catch up. “She’s all mine to love with a wide open heart,” he sings over driving electric guitar strains.

The title track is an optimistic Johnny-Cash-esque number about better days taking longer to come. “Around each corner shines a sun just waiting for both of us to see,” Yoakam sings over a skipping bass line and breezy mid-tempo arrangement. The organ-tinged “I Spell Love” similarly plays like heart-on-sleeve ballad. It’s not complicated, ripe for campfires, but eventually picks up up some steam.

Yoakam has hung his hat on the L.A. cowpunk style of music for a long time, and he continues in that vein on Brighter Days. “California Sky” is a great example, mixing his distinct twang with shimmering organ, guitar playing and harmonies that give the song an extra level of brightness. Its warm sound is full of major chords.

His cover of Cake’s “Bound Away” also has a distinct cowpunk influence thanks to the instrumentation and sound mixing. The guitar work, which blends picking and strumming for a percussion-like effect provides a bed for a pedal steel melodies. Vocally, Dwight Yoakam hits a couple of longer notes that show his voice is still strong.

One of the brightest spots on the album is “I Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye (Bang Bang Boom Boom),” with Post Malone, who’s neck deep in his country era. Posty and Yoakam sing about being unsure where a relationship went wrong over pedal steel, electric piano and a honky tonk beat. “Bang bang boom boom is how a broken heart beats on,” they harmonize on the chorus. It’s a team-up we didn’t know we needed, but the two sound perfect together.

Yoakam puts his own spin on American standard and Carter Family classic “Keep On The Sunny Side.” The song is slightly sped up and gets a rock edge, which gives it a modern feeling. A cover of The Byrds’ “Time Between” gets infused with a similar rockabilly sound.

Rather than attempt to keep up with the ever-changing nature of popular country music, Dwight Yoakam does what makes him happy on Brighter Days. The record feels genuine and optimistic, and country music is short on artists like him.