Review

Move aside and let the man go through. Let the man go through.
What separated Soul Coughing from the run of alt-rock bands it shared its mid-’90s heyday with was its sense of groove and surprise: the sound shards Mark De Gli Antoni’s sampler and keyboards conjured took care of the latter, drummer Yuval Gabay and double bassist Sebastian Steinberg’s elastic rhythms the former. Ex-S.C. frontman Mike Doughty isn’t as irresistibly blissful without them — he’s got to work that groove up himself, which is not easy to do without sounding a little labored. But damned if he doesn’t work at it, and on this, his fourth solo album, he largely succeeds. Golden Delicious features Doughty’s guitar as expansively percussive as ever, and it has the least tentative singing he’s done on his own — relaxed if not precisely tuneful, with words that seldom strain. And sometimes they could stand to strain a little more, as when he croons a clunker like, “The moonlight shines like a luminous girl tonight.”

But unlike Doughty’s prior solo work, Golden Delicious spotlights a band as well as a singer. With Semisonic leader Dan Wilson producing, Doughty’s road-band regulars, keyboardist John Kirby, drummer Pete McNeal and bassist Andrew Livingston (on guitar here), plus guest bassist John Munson (also of Semisonic), give the jaunty likes of “Fort Hood” and “Nectarine (Part One)” a grainy strut. It’s jam-funk at its friendliest and most focused, and with the songs nice and concise, there’s no extraneous musical funny business. Equally impressive is “Wednesday (Contra La Puerta),” whose pensive mood is so effective largely because Doughty and his group play it so casually. There are fewer surprises here than in Doughty’s older days — that’s usually how it works in life as in rock. But albums this comfortable aren’t about surprises anyway.