I still haven't figured out the meaning behind the monkey sitting on "Joe Henry's" shoulder on the cover of his latest album, "Fuse," but if he keeps putting out albums like this, I'll chip in to buy him another monkey.

Apparently, this album represents a big change from prior "Joe Henry" offerings, which were more along the lines of alt-country, roots-rock. Generally, the music on "Fuse" has the feel of beat poetry set to a bluesy urban groove, with touches of jazz augmenting the basic sound. Throughout "Fuse," the songs are built upon a bass groove, delivered on some songs by Jennifer Condos, and on most other tracks by Ready Freddie Washington. At times, the bass is subtle, as on "Want Too Much." On a majority of songs, however, the bass is given top billing, really filling up the headphones with a huge, fat presence. Washington really gets things moving on "Great Lake," while Condos gets her turn on "Like She Was A Hammer."

Lyrically, "Joe Henry" is all over the place. You're forced to wonder if all the songs are delivered tongue-in-cheek, with a wink in the direction of those who would take his words too literally. The opening track, "Monkey," is a song about a guy waiting for a woman to return to him. With lyrics like, "I'll keep your monkey, I'll treat him good/ I'll talk to him like he talks to you/ I'll cut your corn and keep it dry/ And maybe someday you'll come back to me," it's hard to take any possible message seriously.

At the same time, Henry's scratchy, at times edgy, at times plaintive vocals are really compelling - you want to take this guy's words to heart. Granted, on certain songs, the vocal style of delivery and the lyrical content match up, as with the excellent "Skin And Teeth." "And so it was you lying down/ This close to me, turning your back/ And all it would take for you to be free/ Was never enough, but too much for me." The track is assisted by backing vocals from the Wallflowers' Jakob Dylan.

Maybe it's the contrast between the way the music sounds and the disorienting lyrics that's making it so hard for me to really get into "Fuse," even as all my co-workers are drooling over its contents. Perhaps not so coincidentally, my favorite song on the album is an instrumental, "Curt Flood," named after the former St. Louis Cardinals' outfielder whose courageous stand against stringent baseball rules ushered in the era of free agency. A great jazzy number, it opens with a spoken word intro, which quickly gives way to Freddie Washington's upfront, grooving bass. Along the way, Jaime Muhoberac chimes in with strange and funky organ effects, while Henry himself provides the percussion track and some guitar lines, showing off his multiple talents.

The album comes to an interesting close in the form of "We'll Meet Again." A crooner's ballad from the 1930's, the song's familiarity haunted me until I figured out where I knew it from - a previous version is featured at the end of one of my favorite movies, Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove." Joe Henry's version, recalling the days of Bing Crosby and the more recent stylings of, say, a Harry Connick, Jr., provides a gentle ending to a very intriguing album.