There are artists who spend a lifetime becoming a master of their craft, and My Days of 58 makes you feel the full weight of Bill Callahan’s career, the work of someone who has been perfecting his art for thirty years. Sounding like a series of stories told around a campfire by the most witty and interesting man you’ve ever had the good fortune to sit beside, the guitar is just simple chords and the accompaniment is lovely and unhurried with slide guitars, piano, percussion, and gorgeous brass adding warmth and weight.

The format of each song is a story, opening with Why Do Men Sing describing his journey to a gig with mundane and mildly melancholic details, eating dinner cold alone and hoping to catch up with an old friend only to find they aren’t there. Callahan isn’t quite sure how he’s ended up here or why, but he is here and he’s deeply grateful for it. The Man I’m Supposed To Be shifts the mood somewhere immediately darker and more intense beneath its stillness, and Empathy is an extraordinary story about his son and daughter told with such warmth. This isn’t songwriting in a conventional sense, and is closer to being read to or listening to an audiobook. It’s deeply comforting. Computer is another highlight, a meditation on AI, auto-tune and the relentless march of technology away from human things, delivered over a simple acoustic guitar with a voice full of beautiful imperfections. The contrast between subject matter and presentation has a stark wit, and the album closes with The World is Still which barely has a tempo, existing like a long exhale or the last embers of the campfire burning down. The whole record has this quality of warmth and intimacy, more like a conversation than a performance. My Days of 58 feels like being in the room with Callahan rather than listening to a recording, crisp, clear and croaky.