Amos Lee has explained that he wrote the title track for his newest release after being moved by a New Orleans street singer he encountered. The singer, who had been performing to no one in particular, had a deep connection with his music and passed it on to his one-man audience. Spirit exudes that feeling of connection. It’s not that Lee ever veered too far from the sort of honest, intimate songwriting that marked his earliest work, but perhaps he needed a bit of a reboot. These songs are raw and open; they touch a nerve. There’s a fervor to the performances, a realism in the stories. “Vaporize,” one of the first tracks released from the album, is enveloping, its soul/gospel buoyancy anathema to the heartbreak expressed: “I can’t seem to find a little piece of mind,” Lee sings. “I guess I’ll just vaporize everything that’s inside.” A more expansive production—stacked vocals, Lee’s and Luther Dickinson’s Southern-fried guitars, keyboard colorings—dominates “Highways and Clouds,” but what might be just a road song in other hands becomes a voyage into the unknown in Lee’s. But sometimes it’s all just alright: “Oh I’ll sing for you/ What more can I do/ Oh I’ll sing for you,” Lee offers in the mostly acoustic “One Lonely Night,” and you’re more than happy to take him up on his offer.