Ted Leo’s song does not remain the same

Ted Leo had been making records for more than two decades when his career took a turn toward the unknown a few years ago. He was falling out with his old record label and was now in his 40s, a time when many rockers start to run on artistic fumes.

Instead, Leo found new inspiration. He didn’t quite reinvent himself so much as dig out new modes of expression in his songwriting, first through a collaboration with Aimee Mann in the Both in 2014, then on a sprawling self-released solo album, “The Hanged Man,” which came out this month.

Leo developed a bond with Mann when he opened a tour for her as a solo act a few years ago. Their mutual admiration turned into a collaborative album, “The Both,” that pushed both artists into fresh territory. “Aimee helped me understand what I could do in a song,” Leo says. “She made me aware that there could be options, and it opened up some things for me, made me aware of strengths I didn’t really know I had.”

“The Both” energized both artists and stands as a peak moment in both their careers, a rare instance of two songwriters with strong individual solo voices creating a seamlessly blended whole that sounds like nothing either had previously released. Leo brought some of that creative juice into “The Hanged Man,” the most ambitious album of a career that stretches back to the late ’80s.

Leo challenged not only himself, to go deeper as an artist, but perhaps also his fans, who may be expecting a certain kind of album from him after all these years.

Though he tries to block out fan expectations when writing songs, “I will admit on some level it is just lip service,” he says. “I am 100 percent certain those expectations have affected how I’ve written and recorded some songs in the past. Usually my own desires would largely dovetail with what I felt those expectations were. But with this album I took the seat belt off and let some of my broader musical ambitions come out. I wasn’t so inhibited. I walk around with weird (musical) stuff in my head all day, and this time I allowed myself to capture some of that.”