ALBUM REVIEW

DWIGHT YOAKAM

“This Time”

Reprise

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Yoakam’s sixth album has the singer and producer Pete Anderson refining their Western shuffles into even more of a perfect science--no one makes better- sounding country records right now, anyway--while not being afraid to fiddle with the formula.

There’s plenty of cross-pollinated country-pop ‘60s residue in these new originals. The spirit of Del Shannon absolutely possesses “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere”; Yoakam blatantly steals the “Oh, Pretty Woman” riff for the rocker “Fast as You”; a borrowed Buck Owens drawl makes its token appearance in Yoakam’s title vocal, and you might hear more Roger Miller than before in there too.

But Yoakam crowns himself “King of Fools,” not king of the road. While these 11 tracks constitute a tour de force of country styles, the themes are entirely single-minded: It’s the singer as wretched rejectee from beginning to end, to a point near self-emasculating parody, without the emotional resonance to really evoke the teardrops constantly being mentioned.

It’s heartache by the numbers, all right, but Yoakam and Anderson play their numbers like no other neo-experimental neo-traditionalist gamblers.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).