ith his fourth full-length album, Ben Chasny has rather unexpectedly brought his Six Organs of Admittance alias into remarkably accessible territory. Compathia follows up on last year’s moody, evocative Dark Noontide, on which Chasny introduced semi-traditional vocal songs into his usual palette of Indian raga and plucked, Fahey-esque acoustic guitar. Compathia, however, is composed of seven vocal tracks and just one brief instrumental, a drastic but not wholly unwelcome move for the always adventurous guitarist.

Just as on Dark Noontide, Chasny’s guitar is the true center of the disc, vocals or not. His style still clings close to the Fahey tradition, with a very naturalistic sound that leaves room for every incidental squeak and rumble that surrounds his clean, rolling finger-picking. The recording’s crisp, pure fidelity aids Chasny’s guitar, making each intricacy of his playing ring out clearly. “Run!” provides the best guitar showcase here, with a raga-styled interlude and coda that find Chasny engaging in brief spurts of jammy showmanship.

Chasny’s vocals are pleasant enough though, as the few vocal tracks on Dark Noontide hinted. His soft, breathy singing—generally tending towards the higher registers, except for the weird, distorted call-and-response on “Somewhere Between” —blends easily into the warm bed of his Eastern-tinged instrumentals. “Hum a Silent Prayer” is possibly his best vocal performance yet, featuring his multi-tracked voice crooning a melancholy hymn over only the sparsest acoustic accompaniment, with a dark drone and tinkled chimes hovering in the background. The whole affair has a gallows feel to it, like the last song of a man marching acquiescent to his death.

On the rest of the album, the songs adhere far more closely to the folky singer-songwriter standard, though always with Chasny’s idiosyncrasies intact. The epic “Only the Sun Knows” closes the album with a fierce, cathartic climax. A marching rhythm buttresses Chasny’s clanging acoustic work and whispery vocals, before guest Ethan Miller from Comets on Fire charges in with a wholly surprising (not to mention earth-quaking) electric guitar solo, laden with feedback. All the while, Chasny continues with his patient, rhythmic acoustic playing, as though his track wasn’t being devoured alive by Miller’s ferocious proto-blues licks. The whole thing dissolves into feedback hum, and then Chasny emerges out the other side, sounding positively victorious as he resumes his song.

“Wind in My Palm” is far calmer, almost sleepy as Chasny’s high voice runs in slow, lushly multi-tracked sweeps over the delicate acoustic guitars. Throughout this album, fortunately, it rarely sounds like Chasny is sacrificing his previous mastery of mood to make accessible songs. On songs like “Wind in My Palm” and the equally subtle “Gone Astray”, the vocals seem to be completely in service to the instrumentals, nicely complementing Chasny’s expressive playing and providing aural variety to the soundscapes. Many of these songs are less traditional songs than the usual Six Organs instrumentals with voice layered over them as another instrument.

Only on a few tracks is there a sense that Chasny actually set out to write a “song,” and though also quite good, these tracks tend to ruin the album’s flow. The opener “Close to the Sky” is the most straightforward thing Chasny’s written yet, with a jaunty, jangling rhythm and catchy vocal melody; it’s a nice song, but seems somewhat distinct from the rest of the album. Oddly enough, though, the most inconsequential track on the album is actually the sole instrumental one: the title track, a solo acoustic guitar piece that doesn’t have much substance or weight in comparison to Chasny’s usually emotionally rich instrumentals.

Despite its flaws, Compathia is overall a fine transitional album, and quite possibly suggests a new direction for Chasny—for his first full foray into this kind of music, it’s remarkably accomplished, and there are more than enough strong moments to suggest that Chasny could soon master this style as thoroughly as he has the already-established Six Organs style. If only for its trio of absolute gems— “Only the Sun Knows,” “Run!,” and “Hum a Silent Prayer” —Compathia is worth some serious attention.