Alejandro Escovedo’s 2006 album The Boxing Mirror was a dark rumination on mortality, recorded as he was recovering from a life-threatening battle with hepatitis C. Now more robust, Escovedo, 57, has returned with his ninth studio collection. Though Real Animal wasn’t made under its predecesor’s sorrowful, enervated circumstances, it's a more powerful record, drenched with overt references to places and events from Escovedo’s past.

“Nuns Song” pays tribute to his days as founder of the Bay Area punk band the Nuns (“We know we’re not in tune/We know we’ll never be great,” he sings). “Chelsea Hotel ‘78” evokes New York’s erstwhile bohemian scene, and the rowdy “Chip ‘N’ Tony” namedrops band members from his prototypical “cowpunk” band Rank And File.

Escovedo wrote the tunes on Real Animal with fellow roots-rocker Chuck Prophet, and the album was produced by Tony Visconti, known for his work with David Bowie and T. Rex – his gorgeous, pulsing strings (the lovely “Sister Lost Soul”) and gritty glam-punk sensibilities skillfully shape the numbers. Escovedo, who was famously designated the “Artist of the Decade” by No Depression magazine in 1998, is taking stock of the life he’s lived. The specifics of his explicitly biographical observations may not matter much to those who aren’t already fans of his music, but the incisive songs also tell a bigger story. And just look where he is now – literally, the YouTube video of him joining Bruce Springsteen onstage to perform “Always A Friend.”

Hear G. Brown 6-10 weekday mornings on 102.3 KCUV (www.kcuvradio.com). Alejandro Escovedo’s Real Animal is the ’CUV CD of the Week.