Nick Lowe

There's a certain winking resignation to the title of Nick Lowe's At My Age, as if it were designed to be spoken with a soft, knowing sigh Now in his late fifties, Lowe is hardly running away from his advancing years -- quite the contrary, the singer/songwriter is comfortable in his skin and his years.

Certainly, he's comfortable in his music, since At My Age marks the fourth time that he's mined the intimate, well-worn country-rock vibe of The Impossible Bird, and if at this point it no longer is a revelation, it's hardly lost its appeal, either. Part of that lies in Lowe's ever-potent charm, and to overlook an album as exquisitely crafted as At My Age is to be a fool, because nobody does this kind of relaxed Americana as well as Lowe, who is still writing songs that stand proudly alongside his previous classics. For instance, there's "I Trained Her to Love Me," a song as wickedly witty and bitterly self- loathing as "Cruel to Be Kind" or "The Beast in Me," a tune that's balanced by the wry new-love anthem "Hope for Us All," which has its share of gently funny lines but is nevertheless a ringing, sincere endorsement of love, worthy of the man who wrote "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?" And that's always been one of Lowe's greatest gifts, that he is possessed with rare humor but also a big heart, which is what gives his music great resonance.