DARING YOUNG MAN

“DARING ADVENTURES.” Richard Thompson. PolyGram. Apologies to Malmsteem, Vai and Van Halen, but here’s a mild-mannered ex-folkie who says as much with six strings as those flashy guitar heroes do. And “Daring Adventures” is also filled with songs that would be extraordinary even without his instrumental pyrotechnics.

The breakthrough here is that producer Mitchell Froom has tossed out the somewhat constricted sound of Thompson’s last few albums. Thompson (who appears at the Palace on Friday and at the Coach House on Saturday) has responded with his best album since 1982’s “Shoot Out the Lights”--and if it doesn’t pack that record’s emotional wallop, that’s OK: Neither has just about everything else released since then.

True to its title, this is a record of raw, bracing music and nerve-ends emotion; of charged instrumental interplay and alternately ethereal and jagged guitar playing; of indelible songs that range from playful rave-ups (“A Bone Thru Her Nose,” “Valerie”) to elegiac (“Missie,” “How Will I Ever Be Simple Again”). There’s even a rock-radio natural: the sly, headlong “Nearly in Love,” one of several songs that showcase Thompson’s often overlooked wry humor.

For the most part, though, there’s little peace and contentment to go with the levity. Most disturbing are the several lost-love songs, because Thompson’s characters make women the butt of their jokes--or blame them for breakups--often enough to give an unsettling tint of misogyny to the album.

But the heartbreaking compassion of “How Will I Ever Be Simple Again” and the self-mocking humor of “Nearly in Love” help balance the scales, and the assertive music blows away most doubts.