Ian Hunter, “Defiance Part 2: Fiction.” Artwork by Johnny Depp.

Almost exactly one year ago, Ian Hunter showed us what he’d been up to during the COVID-driven quarantine, enlisting other notable musician peers to help put meat on the bones of demo tracks he’d already worked up. The resulting album, Defiance Part 1, was some of his hardest rocking material in years, boosted by the likes of Stone Temple Pilots, Ringo Starr, Billy F. Gibbons, Jeff Beck, Todd Rundgren and others.

With the “Part 1” attached to that title, you knew there was more coming, and here it is. Defiance Part 2: Fiction may not be quite up to the overall standard set by its predecessor, but the high points of the new release – which also features many famous players – may be even higher.

Exhibit one: “Fiction,” the (sort of) title track, its fairly typical Hunter lyrics about standing up to a crazy world and maintaining a shred of humanity in the process supported by an insistent string arrangement by David Mansfield. The primary guest here is Morgan Fisher, keyboardist in late-period Mott the Hoople, where Ian Hunter first gained fame. The music on “Fiction” is unlike anything else on Part 2 or Defiance Part 1, in a good way.

High points, exhibit two: “Precious,” on which the late drummer Taylor Hawkins and Queen guitarist Brain May play. The latter’s signature guitar sound finally emerges in the second half of the song, and it’s fairly glorious.

Defiance Part 2 gets off to a rollicking start with “People,” and three-fourths of Cheap Trick (most notably guitarist Rick Nielson) give the song crunch. “This Ain’t Rock and Roll,” featuring the core musicians Dane Clark (drums), Tony Shanahan (bass) and Hunter’s Rant Band stalwart Andy York (guitars, including a wicked slide), most assuredly is rock and roll.

Hunter has long been known for his curmudgeonly bent, which crops up all over Part 2 on tracks like“Weed,” “Everybody’s Crazy but Me,” “Fiction,” “People” and the aforementioned “This Ain’t Rock and Roll.”

While some may see the 84-year-old Hunter as defying Father Time by continuing to make such no-punches-pulled rock, he also continues to poke holes in the status quo as he sees it.

“There’s a reason why reason is obsolete … because we believe in fiction,” he sings on the title track. “Our lives are fiction now … what’s normal, anyway?” Ever the political centrist, he even has a cynical take on moderation on “People:” “We need the left for decency/ We need the right for money and marketing/ Marketing is everything.”

Hunter takes the time to name-check one of his old albums (1989’s excellent “YUI Orta”) and to take a cathartic moment in the vein of John Lennon in the Plastic Ono Band on “Everybody’s Crazy but Me:” “No more ‘We The People.’ No more Mott The Hoople!”

But Hunter has always had a sentimental streak, too, which shows itself on “What Would I Do,” a duet with Lucinda Williams, and on “Hope.”

A note to those with turntables: The vinyl release of Defiance Part 2, in observance of Record Store Day on April 20, has three songs the basic album doesn’t. All of them are winners, especially “How’d Ya Like to Meet Henry.”

Hunter says on “Precious” that “I ain’t got much curb appeal.” Maybe. But he’s earned the right to speak his mind, and to call BS on society’s insanity. And if you’re being honest, aren’t you glad he’s still doing it?