Jeff Beam has been strumming at the crossroads of Portland, Maine’s fertile indie-rock, folk and jazz scenes for years, and on this fittingly eponymous album, we get an eerie, era-spanning snapshot of every soul he’s encountered and a timely statement of activism that speaks to this particular moment in America’s history. The multi-instrumentalist is responsible for nearly every sound on the 9-track album—an inspiring and cathartic collection of songs that pleas for healing and change through civic engagement and artistic output.

From the opening shuffle of the haunting “Stephen King,” Beam’s homage to the fellow Mainer’s knack for creative alchemy, to the taut bedroom-funk of “Peripheral,” to the sun-dappled lo-fi disco of “Disarray,” Beam’s songs are eerily familiar, flashing before us his late friend and collaborator Tanner Olin Smith as well as the ghosts of influences like Grizzly Bear, Spoon, Olivia Tremor Control, and Radiohead before leaving their own distinct marks.

These songs resonate with a deeper urgency and focus than any material the polyphonic songwriter has ever given us. Of course, a little urgency is what being a sharp political observer will get you. Beam’s been a Bernie Sanders supporter from well before 2016, and many of these songs have shared the stage with the Vermont senator. Beam fesses that several of the tracks were born from the hope and anxiety coiled in today’s political moment—including “Think Twice, It’s Not All Right,” a final plea to Donald Trump supporters with a tense melody and skittering tape loops that sound as if lifted from the back half of The White Album.

On a sidewalk in Portsmouth, New Hampshire an eccentric gentleman offered to draw Beam for five dollars. Beam only being able to offer a dollar, the man generously agreed to do the sketch, and the portrait by that unknown artist graces the cover of Jeff Beam, embodying exactly what Beam sets out to confront with his music: connection. As much as Jeff Beam is an expression of the artist finding deeper connections with himself, it is also an expression of our connections with one another.

Whenever Jeff Beam makes an album, it feels like he’s arrived. But in the years since he first began crafting his distinct brand of dreamy, hypnotic psych-pop, Jeff Beam feels like the one we’ve been waiting for this whole time.

Vocals, guitar, bass, and drums

Jeff Beam, guitar and vocals

Scott Nebel, guitar

Sam Eisner, bass

Dan Boyden, drums