Fleeting Days is beyond folk and beyond irony. In “Baby Bye Bye,” love is music and music is love, and neither has to be “good” to be full of meaning. An impotent “Superman,” unequal to saving this mess of a world, hangs up his cape and puts in a call to Lois Lane. With a full band behind him and a bag of tricks that encompasses a vast musical spectrum, Bern sounds as big as he thinks. The joyous synth-pop of “Jane” rejects Einstein’s theory of relativity for the simple pleasures of thinking about a girl; the adamant “Crow” moves punkishly fast and takes a stand — this is the sound of a man putting his psychological house in order, deciding what’s important and chucking the rest. Bern finds that the rock and roll life is a “Graceland” of the mind, a place where everyone who loves music can live, with or without a living Elvis. And “Closer to You” might be a love song, but it’s intense, ominous, and elliptical, strewn with broken glass like a potent, painful affair.

Fleeting Days comes after the scathing The Swastika EP and sport-song cycle/book World Cup. Dan Bern continues to bring the funny, but this time he’s smuggling it within 13 musically eclectic songs, a wider worldview, and his most sophisticated recording to date.