CDs: Ray Davies, Willie Nelson, 'Spirits in the Material World: A Reggae Tribute to the Police' and the SteelDrivers

"Working Man's Café" (New West/Ammal)

*** ½

With its political upheaval and economic uncertainty, its spiritual values and social conventions in disarray, the modern world is a sitting duck for the sights of Ray Davies. Rock's great chronicler of human frailty in the '60s and '70s, the leader of the Kinks faded away for a while, but on his second solo album (in stores Tuesday) in the last two years he goes toe-to-toe with the beast.

The Englishman's familiar themes -- the common man's helplessness, the fading of the old ways, the loss of cultural identity -- are brought up to date, with "Vietnam Cowboys" depicting the messy effect of globalization, and the title song and "One More Time" eyeballing American product imperialism and the "economic vultures" of the corporate sphere.

Teaming with Nashville veteran Ray Kennedy as co-producer, the singer has mounted a strong, flavorful sound that refreshes his familiar array of folk-rock, music hall, Protestant hymn et al. He draws deeply on the 2004 incident in which he was shot by a robber on a New Orleans street. Inept bureaucracy sparks the comedic "No One Listen," and Davies wrestles with complexities of right and wrong in "Angola (Wrong Side of the Law)," a song that feels like a capstone but is billed, oddly, as a bonus track.

Ultimately, the aftermath proves as debilitating as the assault, but he also gets a gem of a vignette out of his intensive-care observations in "Morphine Song." Overall, the album's humor level is a little lower than usual for Davies, but the reflective songs are among his most intimate and touching.

Perhaps inspired by that brush, Davies depicts personal identity going from elusive to nonexistent in the sublime "Imaginary Man." And "In a Moment" is a sanctification of the time just before dawn, a gorgeously framed image for the capacity to be transfigured.

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An odd pairing helps vet shine

Willie Nelson

"Moment of Forever" (Lost Highway)

***

The Red Headed Stranger goes all moody on us for much of this collaboration (due Tuesday) with, of all people, Kenny Chesney, who co-produced with Nashville veteran Buddy Cannon. Odd couple-ish as it may sound, Chesney and Cannon sculpt evocative, Daniel Lanois-like sonic surroundings in the mesmerizing lead-off track, "Over You Again," which Nelson wrote with his sons Micah and Lukas, and for Nelson's intensely intimate performance of the Kris Kristofferson-Danny Timms title track, a celebration of one of those moments when love felt perfect.