Hearing folks like Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan spit out couplets as well composed as they are well performed has informed that last fifty years worth of musicians and writers. Getting to the middle of any matter was somehow reduced to a pair of lines, sometimes flowery in nature, but sometimes simple and cinematic. Looking out a back to onto a vast sprawl of emptiness hasn’t ever sounded good unless sung by one of these two folks.

So, over the last half century, the fact that people (imitators or not) have approximated the sound of each one of these folks isn’t a tremendous surprise. And certainly, a good portion of the time, recreating either Cooke or Dylan’s sound wasn’t on purpose. These two men have simply changed American music.

A lot of that, though, can be heard in the calmest record Cass McCombs has issued. On Catacombs, the singer, songwriter and guitarist goes in on a clutch of tunes uniform in delivery, but swelled to breaking with tossed off musical asides.

From the album’s outset, “Dreams Come True Girl,” drips with Dylan penned words and a Beatles delivery while still being able to reference Cooke in its vocal phrasing. At five minutes, the supposed piece of musical flattery might be a bit too much. Cooke didn’t push past the pop song market in length, while Dylan disregarded it. So, the folkster might be a better point of reference, but McCombs’ voice can seemingly summon just about anyone from the backlog of popular music in this country and elsewhere.

A brief misstep crops up on “You Saved My Life.” It’s just for this one song, but that weird eighties thing that occasional grips fashion and shitty bands seems to have taken over keyboard duties. It’s difficult to say how the song would sit without that supplemental piece of music included, but with it in there, it’s safe to say that there’s not too much to keep listeners riveted.

That, though, is the overarching issue with the disc. Catacombs isn’t lacking in any specific arena of song craft. Each effort is well devised and performed, there’s just not too much variety. The mood created over the course of the disc’s eleven tracks is well defined. It could be argued that ambience, in many cases usurps creative impulses. And it could be figured that Catacombs has been well received predicated on just that. Hopefully, though, McCombs can wrangle a different angle in the future.