A musician of incredible velocity, Hawksley Workman is at the top of his game when he has the solitude and serenity to write and record his music in atomic bursts, focused into monastic postures, accessing grace and brilliance in fluid, sweeping motions. With his increasing rock triumphs, growing fan communities and formidable body mass, Workman has evolved from the slight, pin-striped oddball with a critically-acclaimed diamond voice, to the panoramic, guitar-punishing superstar with no performance limits. After the success of 2003's Lover/Fighter, the adoring battlefield was cleared and swords were beaten into plowshares.

Now Workman invites the audience to listen with wide-eared wonder at something as simple and earnest as a Treeful Of Starling. This, his latest album in a career of far-reaching achievement, is a return to what motivated him as a musical artist in the first place. As he puts it, “an exercise in remembering what it is about music that is important to me.” From this mission statement comes an album of remarkable directness and breathtaking beauty that clings to home truths and heartfelt emotions.

The swagger of Workman’s delicious wolf is replaced by a reflective and quiet exploration of the world outside and the universe within. Without shouting, it demands to be heard because of the depth of feeling expressed. This is an album that sees the artist examine the contents of the soul if one were to sweep the trappings of civilization, modernization, efficiency and progress away. What would you be left with: a ruin or a restored capacity to commune? Workman was faced with such an investigation when other paths did not lead through the woods.

Treeful Of Starling is a modest album borne partly of frustration. Since lover/fighter, ensuing periods of recording have yielded widely ranging results and perhaps three albums’ worth of material very different in nature from this release. Needing to refresh and refocus, a retreat from the cacophony of society saw Workman hole up behind a locked door with a rented piano and a Studer 8-track to create this profound collection of introspective works.

To paraphrase the messages of these nine songs would be superfluous. They are written as plainly as any truth must be. To put is succinctly, this is an album of marveling at the eternal and elevating. What are the values and characteristics we hold most dear were material comforts not to be considered? What is of real importance now and what will be worth remembering in the distant future? The wonders of beauty, love and majesty beckon. Treeful Of Starling reminds us of what ideals unite us without being cloyingly sentimental.