I've only listened to it twice so far, but already by the second listen it was really growing on me. I think it is a stretch for him in a lot of ways, but if you don't already like his recent stuff (by recent I mean last 10 or 15 years) then it probably won' t make you like him all of a sudden.
I've only seen him live once, and it was a big enough dissapointment that I decided never to bother again; but he's really honed his live act in the interim without a label, at least from what I seen on the Who Put the M in Manchester bday performance. In any case, he's not touring Canada for this one because he objects to the Seal Hunt so I won't have a chance anyway, unless I go to Detroit.
