With 40-plus albums under his belt and a career that has spanned nearly 30 years, Giant Sand’s leader, mastermind and troubadour, Howe Gelb, is definitely no stranger to music. Giant Sand is one of many of his musical incarnations, among them The Band of Blacky Ranchette, Arizona Amp, Alternator and OP8 just to name but a few. Having notched up 20 albums to its name, proVISIONS is Giant Sand’s lucky 21, and the first album for the Arizona-based entity in almost four years.

Brooding and reflective, Gelb is a sonic artist, painting pictures of isolation, restlessness and loneliness onto his musical landscape. Marked by sombre tones, this album is classic Southwestern roots and lo-fi, cinematic Americana, its songs exploring love, loss and other tales of woe in the darker, introspective edges of the modern world. Around its edges, it echoes a little of Nick Cave’s dark sound (circa Let Love In ), while the gut of the songs evoke strong and tactile imagery of smoky coffee houses, dark streets and even the vast open Arizona desert.

Sonically, the songs on proVISIONS are sparse and atmospheric, creating a haunting space. The vastness of the songs brims with subtle layers of sound, from bare guitars and intriguing piano lines to its rolling, laidback bass rhythms. But Gelb’s greatest instrument is probably the human voice, and he has plenty of great help here. The opening track Stranded Pearl features the fragile vocals of former Belle and Sebastian singer Isobell Campbell. It’s one of the album’s strongest and most dynamic offerings, moving from a slow-riding rhythm into a choppy, almost retro-inspired chorus marked by defined guitar strums and melodic piano. The sparse yet solid Without a Word features the distinctive vocals of Neko Case, which add a resounding, harmonic complement to Gelb’s voice.

Gelb himself seems almost apologetic about his “attempted singing” (as stated beside his name on the album sleeve), but he has nothing to be sorry for. While his voice may not be classically trained, it has its own casual, raw beauty which is tuned perfectly for this style of sprawling, visual music. Throughout the album, his vocals dominate the tracks as he reflects, contemplates and muses over the state of the world.

Gelb is less storyteller, more poet. In another album highlight, Spiral, his disappointment with the status quo is clear as he croons, “A lot of crippled hearts out there, some will never mend, losing our patience and losing too many good men.” In the slightly cynical Pitch & Sway, he hints at impending destruction, telling us, “The sheets held up once for sailing are going to bury another.”

While some of the overtly country-tinged moments are less pleasing to the ears ( Can Do featuring M. Ward is disappointingly forgettable), this record is certainly not lacking. At 52, Gelb isn’t showing any signs of slowing down – if anything, he continues to grow as an artist and inspire a plethora of others. Wonderfully moody and cohesive, proVISIONS is another fine offering from one of music’s underground mainstays.