Glen Reynolds

Former Chomsky guitarist Glen Reynolds' solo debut opens and closes with songs about the two kinds of fear that love provokes, sometimes simultaneously: the fear that a relationship won't last and the fear that it will.

Opener "Setting Sun" is especially strong, with its soaring chorus of "All I can feel is horror/That you're the chosen one" summing up that ambivalence. Other prominent themes are maturity, as Reynolds accepts and embraces fatherhood and the steady warmth of long-term love, and anxiety about a dangerous world, as he pines for "Lost Souls" and missing children. Suitably, the music is more nuanced than the high-energy power pop of Reynolds' former band.

Things get a bit sappy early in the playlist. The saccharine poppiness of "Wonderland" and "I Feel Love" (the latter with the gag-inducing couplet "It's like you understand/All over this great land") belong on a WB teen drama. But Reynolds is such an excellent lead guitarist that he could play over a Fall Out Boy song and I'd have a hard time hitting the skip button.

Then it gets interesting again. "M is for Missing" mourns for lost children, with a ghostly theremin sound haunting like a mother's cries. The haunting in "Lost Souls," with its heavily reverbed "They come in the night" chorus, is more literal, all chilly breath and lonely spirits.

Reynolds occasionally reaches for distractingly lofty language, such as "lucid as Orion's starry belt" in "Hitchhike to Nowhere." The highfalutin turns of phrase are no surprise, however, considering he earned his stripes in a band named for a linguist.