Tim Heidecker who is known to the world as playing a hack comedian, (“No more bullshit!”,) in such series as Tim and Eric and On Cinema, has plied his trade as an actor/comedian for years. He even ended up a protective father in Dinosaur Jr’s 2012 music video for “Watch The Corners,” toppling over a crate of mayonnaise in revenge for a grocery store punk breaking his on-screen daughter’s heart. Being a dad (“Dad Of The Year”) shows up on his latest album of songs with the Very Good Band, and the appeal, he’s willing to admit, is to see Heidecker drop the schtick and lose none of the talent.

On his latest album, Slipping Away, his fifth studio album—past album’s featuring such notable acts as Weyes Blood, The Lemon Twigs, and Mac DeMarco—he delves into personal topics like writer’s block (on the opening song “Well’s Running Dry”), working every day of his life and never making his big break, like some dogged baseball players (“Bottom of the 8th”), and the feeling that “Something Somewhere” is coming for him. The apocalypse plays a role on the album, and the record was, in fact, created to be consumed in two parts, following the theme of before and after the fall.

Some of the songs border on the edge of comical, like the ‘60s reminiscent “Like I Do,” which pokes fun at the sometimes stifling institution of marriage, or “Dad of the Year,” which balances the earnestness of caring for your family with the comedic irony that “The only award that I am gonna see / is from my family / and that should be enough for me.” Much of the album plays on the fact that many of Heidecker’s comedic characters are just kind of schmucks, but he’s not so much.

He has all the feelings that good middle aged working men like him have. The feeling of sadness when something good comes to an end (“Why did we think any of us would last?”), the modern fear of things like nuclear fallout (“The cockroaches are gonna be fine”), the desire just to be around other people (“Tomorrow when I wake, I’ll go back to town / See if I can find anyone around”). It’s kind of a wholesome experience, though the music is faithfully adventurous at every turn, and he’s willing to turn a couple of heads in the process, like on the song “Trippin’ (Slippin’)” which talks about doing mushrooms by the swimming pool. Fans at shows that he’s playing around the country with Waxahatchee and the like are bound to wonder whether to laugh along, Heidecker has such an understated sort of humor. But they are overall earnest and interesting songs that find him baring his hopes and his fears in music that is as good as any middle-aged band is bound to put out, and better.

Pre-order Slipping Away by Tim Heidecker HERE