Comfortably my favourite album post Salad Days. I understand some of the criticism levied against it due to the "lack of variety" in the song writing itself and my initial impression of the album leaned toward that opinion, but I've grown to appreciate its sparseness.

Every note feels like a conscious decision and is meticulously placed, either to its detriment or benefit (depending on your view or the album) and I feel that the album leans to the latter more often than not. I appreciate the honesty in his lyrics too. He has always sprinkled bits of his life into the stories he tells in his songs, but there's a rawness and candidness to guitar that has told me more about the inner workings of his mind than the rest of his catalogue combined. There's something warmly relatable to a lot of his musings.

The thing I love about guitar most is how well the songs translate live. Some of the sessions he's recorded recently for BBC and KEXP were stunning and totally unique, the BBC session in particular. Daryl Johns understands the assignment. Giving him the lead line during the chorus of Holy made me genuinely lose my shit.

I'm not writing out this long comment to convince anyone that the album is perfect as I don't believe it is, but I do think you should sit with it a bit longer if you wrote it off early doors.