Time: 8 p.m.

Tickets: $25 Members, $27.50 Non-members, $30 Door

http://www.slaid.com

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Slaid Cleaves. Grew up in Maine. Lives in Texas. Writes songs. Makes records. Travels around. Tries to be good.

Granted, there’s a whole lot of story and details that can be shoehorned in there to pad and flesh it out. But until “writes,” “makes,” “travels” and “tries” are all made past-tense and one final line is tacked on for an epitaph — hopefully something along the lines of, “Died full” — all that’s really called for, from time to time, is a footnote or two to bring folks up to speed on his latest batch of literate, sepia-toned Americana songcraft. This year’s bounty comes baring the admittedly foreboding title of Everything You Love Will be Taken Away, but fans of the Austin-based singer-songwriter needn’t fear: Everything you love about the man’s singular voice and music is still very much . There’s been some notable changes made, all in the name of artistic growth, but rest assured: all that living, writing songs, making records, traveling around and trying to be good has, par for his course, made Slaid Cleaves even better.


Everything You Love . . . is the followup to 2006‘s Unsung, a lovingly crafted collection of covers written by some of Cleaves’ favorite — if somewhat lesser known — fellow travelers on the troubadour road. But it’s been a good five years since Cleaves’ last album of self-penned songs, 2004’s acclaimed Wishbones, which fans had waited nearly as long for in the afterglow of the songwriter’s 2000 breakthrough, Broke Down. But though Cleaves may never be confused with the infamously prolific Ryan Adams, his slow-and-steady-wins-the-race pace, not unlike that of Guy Clark, yields albums full of uncommonly fine-tuned songs built to stand the test of time. To the long list of past road- and radio-proven Cleaves classics (“No Angel Knows,” “Horseshoe Lounge,” “Broke Down,” “One Good Year,” “New Year’s Day,” “Wishbones,” “Drinking’ Days,” etc.), one can now add highlights from the new album like “Hard to Believe,” “Beyond Love,” “Temporary” and especially the opening “Cry,” from which Everything You Love’s title was taken.


“I think of that song as sort of a breakthrough,” Cleaves says of “Cry,” which from the very first listen jumps out as not only one of the most emotionally trenchant songs of his career, but also arguably one of his catchiest. “showcases a shift in focus that I've taken with this record. It's a bit more internal, personal. I actually recorded that song four separate times, because from the start it like something new and special, and I wasn't quite sure how to present it. I always felt like this e could go the way if I did it right. I thought it had the bones of a thoroughbred.”


“Cry” may be the centerpiece of Everything You Love Will be Taken Away, but it is not the only “not typical” Slaid moment here. Although character studies like “Black T Shirt” and “Tumbleweed Stew” showcase Cleaves as the portrait-painting writer fans know best, by and large, everything else about the album — from the songs to the cover art to the title itself — represents a conscious effort to break the mold.


“I’ve been putting out records for 12, 15 years now, so most of the people who listen to this kind of music know who I am,” Cleaves says. “So I was very concerned with the possibility of inducing yawns if I were to just put out the same kind of record. And to reflect the different feel of this record I felt it needed to be presented differently. That’s how I chose the title; originally it was going to be Hard to Believe, which sounds like a ‘typical’ Slaid Cleaves record. I commissioned an illustration for the cover because I didn’t want yet another black and white picture of my face — I wanted some color and creativity and emotion there.”