First Listen: Bill Callahan, 'Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest'

"I sing for answers," declares Bill Callahan at one point on his calmly revelatory new album, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest. "I sing for good listeners," he adds. "And tired dancers."

This firm statement of purpose comes at the end of a gamboling song full of disclaimers. The beginning of the song, "Call Me Anything," amounts to a backpedaling shrug:

I never was the things I said IBut it's not as if I liedWhat I was, all I wasWas the effort to describeThe effort to describe