Travistan and the Dismemberment Plan. There. I wanted to just throw those out there right at the start and get them out of the way, as they're the two points of reference reviews are inevitably going to go to time and time again for Morrison's new record. They're also two things to which Morrison may already tire of comparisons. And, of course, they're the essential pieces of the questions on many a hopeful fan's lips in advance of All Y'All: is it better than the former, and could it ever be as good as the latter? The short answers? Yes, and no.

Cynics might say that besting Travistan isn't exactly saying much. But Morrison's first solo outing isn't the unholy train wreck some make it out to be. It's just that the person perhaps most disappointed with the record also happened to write the most talked about review of it. It's a little disheartening that a review can become perhaps the most talked about piece of music criticism of a decade based solely on two little numbers at the top. Still, whatever your feelings about Travistan, it's hard not to admit that it sounded like a record by an artist searching for something. And sometimes having trouble finding it. The good news about All Y'All is that Morrison no longer sounds like he's reaching. It's a much more cohesive record, and is free of the sense of flailing about that sometimes marred his debut. Whether that's simply a function of time, or of the increased collaboration evident with his new band the Hellfighters, it's a welcome development.

As for the second part of that question, it's kind of irrelevant. When your former group has reached a kind of iconic status, comparative quality is judged far more on reputation than anything else. Even if All Y'All was better than anything the Plan had ever recorded, no one would ever say so. So better just to attempt to judge it on its own merits.

And plenty of merit it has. The record is full of strong songwriting and memorable melodies. Opener "I'm Not Supposed to Love You (But)" is a confident start, riding out a dreamy and jazzy synth line that breaks down into skittering rhythms that keep the otherwise mellow tune from getting too comfortable with itself. Morrison brings out the big guns early, following the first track's brief nonchalance with easily the best song he's written since "Time Bomb" on the Plan's Change. Built around a clear guitar riff and the gruff contrast of a bass line both insistent and menacing, "As We Proceed" shows Morrison at his best, building nervous tension through verses before releasing it through bright and airy choruses.

Not everything necessarily works so effortlessly. "Catch Up" is likely to be the first problematic track for some listeners. The verse is promising, recalling the angular pop of Chad Clark projects like Smart Went Crazy or Beauty Pill before heading into a schizophrenic chorus featuring a guest rap by an artist that's not named in the liner notes Hellfighter David Brown. If you're of the mind that R.E.M. jumped the shark when KRS-One guested on "Radio Song," you're likely to feel the same here. For me, both of them work, but Morrison takes a complete left turn at the bridge that sounds like a completely different song intruding clumsily into the room and loses me. "East Side of the River" over-indulges Morrison's R&B proclivities with limited effectiveness. "Book of Names" is marred by a chorus that piles on the cheese factor. And so it is with most of the weaker moments, that there is nothing that falls directly on its face, but it's often otherwise good songs that don't quite work for their entire running time due to the odd sour ingredient.

If there's anything really missing from All Y'All, it's the sort of bared nerve rawness that Morrison does so well. While he approaches it somewhat on "As We Proceed" and a little in the frenetic "You Make Me Feel Like a Freak," many tracks just seem a little too safe. Some tracks in the middle of the record suffer the fate of being unmemorable for this shortcoming. But take that for what it's worth, as I always preferred Morrison at his most crazed, in songs like "Memory Machine" or "The Dismemberment Plan Gets Rich." If you tend to prefer "Ellen and Ben," then this may be just the record for you. Especially because Morrison does make dialing it back work for him. On the album's closer, "Saturday Night," his voice lowers to an intimate near-murmur over a dreamy synth, toughening itself as the instrumentation does the same before subsiding again at the close. It's a mature and beautiful effect in a song that showcases the full range of what Morrison is capable of, on a record that accomplishes much the same.

Travis Morrison Hellfighter's All Y'all will be available in stores on Tuesday, Aug. 21, and can be found now streaming on their web site.