Like any other Silver Jews album, Berman’s lyrics are again one of the album’s greatest strengths. Alternately humorous and poignant, with plenty of observations ranging from the banal and silly to those of pure brilliance that will make fledgling lyric writers everywhere jealous, the lyrics do somewhat offset the album’s overall odd and ineffective flow.

The previously mentioned “Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer” is damn funny in a bizarre and twisted way, describing a dishwasher fellow who meets a girl described as a “hardcore gobbler and a longtime guzzler of hydrogenated crap.” Similarly, in “San Francisco B.C.,” amid a collection of criminals and dodgy characters with lousy haircuts, Berman offers up perhaps the best line of the entire album: “Romance is the douche of the bourgeoisie was the very first thing she imparted to me.”

By and large, Berman’s misfits on Lookout seem far less desperate and fractured than those hapless souls from previous albums. As with any lyricist whose songs often come across (or are interpreted by fans and critics) as highly personal, the obvious temptation is to view this shift in light of what is known about how Berman’s life has stabilized in the last few years. Of course, this is pure speculation and critics and fans would be misguided to apply their limited knowledge of such things to the songs. Lyrically, the songs stand on their own, regardless of whether the listener wants to view them as biographical or not.

Lookout is a good album with good songs. Even if it doesn’t quite stack up to the Silver Jews’ best work, it’s worth checking out and giving a spin. But, like some of Berman’s more troubled characters, it never really gains any steam or goes very far.