For his 15th album, Robert Earl Keen returns to what he does best: telling sly, unlikely stories about drifters, losers, and rednecks, and somehow making you care about them. The songs can be foolish as the shaggy-dog “10,000 Chinese Walk into a Bar,” with its long-forgotten punch lines, or “Wireless in Heaven,” a hoedown pondering the eternal questions of Jesus Christ’s website. They can be as serious as the shuffling “Throwin’ Rocks,” about a crime of stoner passion, or the quietly detailed, yearning “On and On,” about riding into the sunset on the thin line between life and death. Keen has been honing his craft for 20 years, long enough to make the best lines—“She wasn’t bad / She wasn’t good / What she was / Was what she was”—sound effortless. The band, led by Rich Brotherton (acoustic and electric guitars, cittern, and mandolin), Lloyd Maines (acoustic, baritone, and electric guitars), and Bill Whitbeck (acoustic and electric bass), easily matches the highs and lows, from overblown comedy to understated tragedy. But it’s a ringer, banjoist Danny Barnes, who steals the show, weaving wildly through song after song, speeding up just to slow down, and coming out the other end as dead solid perfect as Robert Earl himself. (Lost Highway, losthighwayrecords.com)