This is arguably Vic Chesnutt’s best album yet and certainly his most fully realised, amply confirming Michael Stipe’s opinion that he is among the top ten songwriters around. Do you need to know more?

For the record Silver Lake was recorded with a group of musicians that Vic hadn’t, in the main, worked with before. The assembled cast, including players who have worked with Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Tracy Chapman and Bob Dylan, provide a rich, textured and multi-layered sound, captured, in a mostly live situation, in Real Music Studios by Mark Howard.

The sound has a roots setting overall but never allows itself to be pinned down by any easy definition. And, as ever, Chesnutt’s singular voice is front and centre on a collection of keenly observed songs that do significant justice to Stipe’s claim.

Highlights include the humourous and spot on deliberations of ‘Girl’s Say’ and the offbeat story of an early relationship in ‘Band Camp’. Silver Lake offers 11 Chesnutt compositions which cover a range of sound and musical settings that never ever come close to formula. Chestnutt may not be a big name yet but with an album like this he is sure to reach a much wider audience. Is Vic there? He sure is.