Scott ‘Wino‘ Weinrich has powered through the last four decades in a blaze of ear-bursting, buzzing psychedelics as he’s set about forging a successful career in the doom metal genre, fronting bands like Saint Vitus, The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan and, more recently, Shrinebuilder. To find him entering his fifth decade keen to switch off his amps and tone down his booming roar of a voice is a bit of a shock to the system. This latest solo album sees him detached from the melee, stripped down to the bones and bursting with a bluesy, emotion-soaked, rasp of a vocal backed up by little more than a swathe of delicately-layered, razor-sharp, acoustic strings.

Whatever you thought you knew about the man and his music, Adrift will simply blow all that away. This is singer-songwriter storytelling at its absolute finest. Shot through with a determination to keep the music clean and simple, Wino delivers his tales with a qualified assuredness, spinning stunning verses like “I thought that I had a licence to fly, I shook his hand and I looked in his eye / To my dismay I was betrayed and my fortunes have turned into lies”.

‘I Don’t Care’ and ‘Old And Alone’ are tracks that would have lent themselves to an absolute mass of drums and electrics, which makes hearing them naked all the more poignant. Occasionally, he does crumble and adds elements of fuzz and cursive, howling lead which sit blinking innocently behind the acoustic guitar, but, rather than detract from the personal nature of the songs, it allows the listener to focus on the magnificence of his skill with a six-string.

He manages to shed a whole new light on Motorhead’s ‘Iron Horse/Born To Lose’, by creating an abundance of space where once there was crushing sonics, and the love-story between a man and his machine is heart-breakingly revealed. The essential instrumental ‘Suzane’s Song’ is about as far away from his past releases as you are ever likely to hear him – listen closely and amidst the stunning array of notes that pour out of Wino’s very soul, you will pick-up on rasps of breath that escape amidst his intense concentration.

Interestingly, other elements creep in towards the end of the album as he drops in the poppy ‘Whatever’, the rock n’roll of Savoy Brown’s ‘Shot In The Head’, the scrawling prog wash of ‘O.B.E.’ and the jagged psychedelics of ‘Green Wash’ to really muddy up the waters. Although none of them really work with the rest of the tone of the album, they are proof enough that here is no ordinary artist and this is certainly no ordinary Wino album. Away from the more familiar moorings of his bands, this particular legend certainly does seem to enjoy being cast adrift and, on this evidence, he’s still got plenty of beguiling tales left to tell.