When he laid down 1994's The Impossible Bird--the ninth solo album in a career that already, via Rockpile, Brinsley Schwarz, Kippington Lodge, and production work for Elvis Costello, the Damned, and the Pretenders, stretched back over 25 years--Nick Lowe probably wasn't setting out to create a four-part trilogy à la Douglas Adams. But with At My Age (which is 58, incidentally, as of the album's June 2007 release), Lowe has created a fine companion to Bird, 1998's Dig My Mood, and 2001's The Convincer. Six years was a bit too long of a wait, 2004's live Untouched Takeaway notwithstanding. And given all that time, Lowe breaks no new ground: At My Age is essentially more of the same combination of blue-eyed soul and pre-Sweetheart country-rock that characterized those previous releases. But when the results are so deliciously horn-drenched and include songs like "Long Limbed Girl," "People Change," "The Club," "Not Too Long Ago," and the delightfully malicious "I Trained Her to Love Me" ("If you think that it's depraved and I should be ashamed, so what? / I'm only paying back womankind for all the grief I got"), who's complaining? Good things have indeed come to those who waited.

-Benjamin Lukoff, Amazon.com