One needs to look no further than the title of Chris Mills' second full-length, and its opener, "Brand New Day," to realize he's turned his back on something and is starting anew. Over a scorching roots-rock backdrop that recalls Son Volt's electric side, he sings, "It's gonna be a brand new day/ Put a smile on my face/ Cut the corners to my mouth/ Hang them from a higher place." "What," I'm sure you're wondering, "could be the source of Mills' newfound happiness?" Well, if you consider Mills' country-rock leanings, you can guess he's turning his back on one of three things: a woman, substance abuse, or lawlessness. The next verse provides ample clarification: "I'm gonna be satisfied/ Fill myself up with lies/ Throw the curtains open wide/ Wipe you from my eyes."

Okay, so maybe it's not as powerful a statement as Steve Earle made with I Feel Alright, a declaration of recovery from drug addiction. Or on par with Dylan's New Morning, an encouraging rebound from the unanimously panned Self-Portrait. And it surely doesn't carry the heavy irony of Cash's At Folsom Prison, which came not long after he swore off misbehavior and took up fundamentalist Christianity with June Carter. But this is tough company, these three albums being master statements of personal turnarounds. Still in his mid-twenties, Mills is taking the more modest route by insisting he's over a woman, while simultaneously making it clear he's not-- not a bold statement by any means, particularly in the country genre. But considering his ability to cleverly twist a common phrase, as well as the broad sonic range his myriad influences provide, Mills deserves the right to that statement as much as the next man.

The next track, however, sees Mills slipping too easily into A.M.-era Wilco-- from the typical pedal steel and piano all the way down to the hoarse voice, hitting similar lyrics in the meantime: "I have changed the locks on my heart since you were here/ And now that key you've got will only unlock a box of tears/ But I wish I'd saved a copy for myself because now there are places in my heart I'll never go again." I could argue that this type of maudlin, metaphorical lyricism is not only acceptable, but encouraged in this genre-- that it's as much a part of country music as the pedal steel. I could, that is, but instead I'll insist that, if nothing else, it fits the album's theme of lost love.

Kiss it Goodbye takes off with "Crooked Vein." The Uncle Tupelo and Co. influences are still apparent-- and why shouldn't they be, since Mills also grew up in Southern Illinois-- but his lyrics are considerably darker. Backed by, yes, a pedal steel, but also a mandolin and violin, he sings, "I'm gonna stick a straight razor in my crooked vein/ It carries cold blood to my crooked heart/ And down my body to liver part/ That alcohol's been tearing apart."

The album then takes an interesting turn with "All You Ever Do," which initially seems to be a tribute-- in sound and word-- to John Cougar Mellencamp. The rocker opens opening with the lines, "Why you gotta hate your hometown, honey?/ Everybody loves a small town," and continues to praise small-town life over the city. But the song shifts midway, harshly criticizing small towns with lines like, "You say you hate the weak women and then ignorant men/ But what's a little nigger joke between friends."

Two well-known indie artists manned the decks for this album, but you wouldn't know it until "Napkin in a Wine Glass," which opens with assorted tinny rings that provide the digital equivalent of crickets. This is the work of Modest Mouse producer Brian Deck who-- as on the similarly spare, excellent "Borderline"-- brings to the song an approximation of Nebraska-era Springsteen and the middle period of his former band Red Red Meat. Accompanied only by Deck's atmospherics and spare guitar and drums, Mills proves again that, when he so chooses, he can deliver with powerful words. Singing about a woman with a scar on her face, he relates how "late at night when we'd had too much to drink/ She'd lean close to me and she'd say/ "I think I'd let my kids play with guns/ Don't want to raise another one like me/ Who'd fold so easily/ Like a napkin in a wine glass."

The Mekons' Jon Langford produced four of the ten tracks on this record, which perhaps makes more sense considering his work in the Waco Brothers, or even the Mekons' last album Journey to the End of Night. His influence, however, is largely untraceable. And I hesitate to even mention the additional vocal or instrumental assistance provided by Kelly Hogan, Pinetop Seven's Ryan Hembrey, and Lambchop's Deanna Varagona, because Kiss it Goodbye is, without question, Chris Mills' record. He starts it on a brand new foot, and ends it with the Spector-meets-Deck closer "Signal/Noise," the final lines of which you already know because you've heard them a thousand times before: "Does it make you happy/ To see me so sad." But Mills' talent lies in his ability to make these words sound new again.

-Ryan Kearney