Ian McNabb

★★★★ Utopian

FAIRFIELD. CD/DL/LP

Twenty songs on the 20th album from former Icicle Works leader.

Never one to lose faith in the redemptive power of music, the gleefully prolific Ian McNabb has been cranking out solo albums for 28 years, mostly as a Merseyside cottage industry based at Nabby Road Studio. There are vestiges of Icicle Works’ trademark Byrdsian gallop, most notably on the radio-friendly summer anthem You Bring Good Things, but his way with an irresistible earworm and a literate lyric remain firmly intact. Over two discs/albums, the rich, defiant Utopian casts McNabb as a mood-spinner supreme. He’s rueful on Boy, where he reflects upon his inevitable posthumous rehabilitation; mischievous when he DJs in a “maximum security nursing home” on Jivin’ Miss Daisy (“Ain’t you got any Howard Keel?”) and beautifully elegiac on Harry Dean Stanton. Is there an artist who’s deserved more than cult status for so long than Ian McNabb? It’s hard to think of one.