Freedy Johnston, “Back on the Road to You.”

Freedy Johnston has been sharing his tales of sad, troubled souls in his plaintive way since 1989. If he dwells less these days in chronicling the adventures of firebugs, victims of clergy abuse and morticians’ daughters and more on his own emotional travails, that unique literate, vulnerable voice, tinged with resignation, survives strong and intact.

And that’s a comforting thing, even when the subject matter is uncomfortable.

Back On The Road To You is Johnston’s ninth album of new material and first since 2015’s Neon Repairman. These 10 original new songs offer his usual style of writing – a combination of detailed descriptions and verbal imagery – and provide both vivid impressions and some major questions unanswered. And they’re often accompanied by music more upbeat than the words.

Case in point: “Tryin’ To Move On,” which ties an upbeat rock arrangement to lyrics about a man so anxious to move on to his next chapter that he sees himself in the rearview mirror as he floors the gas pedal toward his new life.

For the most part on Back On The Road To You, Johnston doesn’t lean on complicated characters like the firestarter he chronicled in “Gone to See the Fire” from 1997 masterpiece Never Home and more like people who miss their baby, or who know their love is gone. In most cases on Back On The Road To You, that complicated person is Freedy himself.

The title song is a straightforward celebration of a man making his way back to his girl, but with the reassuring Johnston touches: “But you’re the one I need, and you’re the one I want… And you still got a lot of my stuff, baby…”

“There Goes a Brooklyn Girl” is a love song that offers a little more mystery, acknowledging things aren’t perfect. “And she’s off to some office I’ve never seen/ And I’m tending bar and playing guitar, and getting by somehow in between/ You know, livin’ the dream,” he sings. But at the end, it’s revealed that what isn’t perfect may not exist at all: “When you’re lying there in bed and your Brooklyn girl just walked off in a dream/ Know what I mean?” In Freedy Johnston’s world, it’s rarely certain that things are what they seem, and that lends an attractive mystique to his best songs.

The one link here to Johnston’s fringe-type characters of yore is “Madeline’s Eye,” but as with most songs on Back On The Road To You, Johnston is describing himself as the guy who bought Madeline, perhaps a humanoid robot, “on time.” “When she tells me how she feels/ Man, she’s almost real,” Johnston sings. He looks into Madeline’s eye and sees “her settings are off a mile.”

Johnston got some help from well-known peers on this album, in the form of duets. None of the guests – Aimee Mann, Susanna Hoffs, Susan Cowsill – really steps into the spotlight, however, instead providing harmonies that fit the tenor of their songs to a tee.

And the music here is typical of what we’ve come to expect from Johnston. It’s mostly mid-tempo, sometimes rocking fairly hard (“The Power of Love”), other times offering a hit of 12-string jangle (“Brooklyn Girl”) and lovely pedal steel flavorings (“Darlin’”), the latter courtesy of lead guitarist Doug Pettibone.

While perhaps lacking an absolute knockout like “Bad Reputation” from This Perfect World or “Western Sky” from Never Home, every track on Back On The Road To You is a winner, with often challenging lyrics buffeted by music that goes down easy. Again, with this new album, Freedy Johnston proves he’s one of America’s finest, most individual singer-songwriters.

Follow journalist Sam Richards at Twitter.com/samrichardsWC.