As a guitarist, Wes Tirey has played with the likes of Kath Bloom and Steve Gunn, while as a solo artist he has been quietly prolific. His latest offering is a masterwork, its 18 songs, from the sturdy gait of “If Love Blues” to the faded romance of “Life Is Good, Life Is Sweet”, portraits of Midwestern life, encompassing rhinestone suits, travelling salesmen, spiders in the cane, silos, bacon grease, corn. Tirey refers to his songwriting style as “rustic minimalism”, which is a fine way to describe the weight of his voice and resonant precision of his lyrics: songs sung steady and straight and true.