Record Rack

Freedy is feeling down. That’s not a new sensation for the Kansas-bred singer-songwriter, but it’s an obsession he can’t shake on this smoky, atmospheric new album. Each of 10 tracks documents small tragedies and shattered romances through waves of delicate instrumentation and sadly evocative lyrics. In one typical passage, Johnston’s wounded, subdued voice asks, “How’re you supposed to learn to be alone?”

“Blue Days Black Nights” is a painfully effective concept album, in the mournful tradition of Frank Sinatra’s timeless saloon laments or Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska.” It’s a long way from Johnston’s early anthem about selling the farm for rock ‘n’ roll. The songs here are all acoustic, recorded live in the studio with minimal overdubbing. The result is an intimate recollection of failed love affairs, all melancholy and loneliness. Here the lost and suffering navigate life via the distant stars. Even moving day is described as a minor crisis.

Johnston escapes the blues twice, during the vaguely up-tempo “Changed Your Mind” and on “Until the Sun Comes Back Again,” which celebrates the distractions of nighttime and drink, to the bright melodies and muffled beats of some mid-’60s-style pop. These offer only momentary relief from Johnston’s blue moods. Sad, but true.

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