This is a record that should really be viewed through the lens of two serious musical crimes of recent times. Last year, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James released a fabulous solo LP, Regions of Light and Sound of God; it’s a beautiful odyssey through James’ own attitudes to spirituality, scored through with gentler, folkier textures than his day job generally allows him to explore; there’s some deft touches of psychedelia, too. It seemed to well and truly fly under the radar; I didn’t even see it pop up in many of those second chance saloons for underappreciated albums, the end-of-year lists; admittedly, it probably wasn’t helped in that regard by an early February release date.

The other transgression alluded to above is that Dean Wareham has spent the past few years as a solo artist, effectively, and yet this self-titled effort is his first-ever full-length in his own right. He’s been touring Galaxie 500 material recently; nothing wrong with that, of course, as the short-lived Massachusetts trio made some gorgeous dream pop over the course of their three-record career. I’d always been interested to hear him strike out on his own, but until now, for one reason or another, he’d apparently not gotten around to it.

And you’ll never guess who sat behind the production desk – Mr. James himself, fresh from a year of mixed fortunes with Regions of Light. He’s finally starting to carve out a reputation for himself as a solo musician, even with sessions for the next My Morning Jacket record taking place as I type; he’s ditched the tongue-in-cheek ‘Yim Yames’ moniker he formerly used for his individual endeavours. It just seems like a really snug fit; two guys who make not dissimilar music, who have taken a fair while to emerge on their own, collaborating on a project they’re both clearly well-suited to.

“Dancer Disappears” opens proceedings in delicate fashion, with tentative, sub-Real Estate guitars ushering in Wareham’s serene vocals. His register has lowered noticeably since his Galaxie days, and there’s a kind of brittle quality that serves as acknowledgement that he’s reached middle age. He sings of the “twilight of the psychedelic years”, but the wonky synths at the midpoint suggest that the curtain hasn’t completely come down on his appetite for anything trippy.

By and large, though, Wareham’s sought to keep his feet relatively close to the ground, if not entirely planted upon it. There’s plenty of contemplation; the slow-burning “Love Is Not a Roof Against the Rain” is a real highlight, driven almost exclusively by the acoustic guitar until, two-thirds in, there’s a subtle, but clear, landscape change. James’ fingerprints are all over it – shuffling drums, yearning slide guitar and touches of spacey keys all accounted for.

The similarly-restrained “Beat the Devil” and “My Eyes Are Blue” tread the same instrumental path; they’re pleasant, but unremarkable. “Heartless People” bears such a striking resemblance to Fleetwood Mac’s “Albatross” that you can almost hear Peter Green’s lawyer rustling through the paperwork; that song’s close popular association with Marks and Spencer’s retrospectively weird series of food porn ads will likely prevent most British listeners from taking it seriously.

The album looks as if it’s about to fade away without providing anything more than an idea of what Wareham covering Mazzy Star would sound like – and then. “I Can Only Give My All” sounds like something Echo and The Bunnymen might’ve turned out if Ian McCulloch had dropped acid as often as he drank; the guitars are freewheeling, and the percussion pleasingly robust. The six-minute “Babes in the Wood” is the standout; it moves very slowly, very deliberately, for much of the opening stages, with Wareham returning to the higher end of his range, to a pitch not unlike the one James so often settles around. Eventually, the relatively minimal instrumental backdrop is punctured by a glorious, distorted guitar solo; it’s precisely what you’d expect from a Galaxie 500/My Morning Jacket crossover.

Closer “Happy & Free” takes its off-kilter electronic cues from its fellow bookend, “Dancer Disappears”, with shimmering guitars, looped keys and even what sound like choppy, sampled church bells also in the mix. The record simmers out very nicely, rather than fizzle in the manner it had been threatening to; the subtlety of James’ production on the track is outstanding. Dean Wareham is an album that sees both of its key players growing in stature as it progresses; I could take or leave the first half, but the second is a delight.