Just when it seemed like Randy Newman had dedicated himself entirely to making good movie scores and schmaltzy soundtrack songs about the value of friendship among cartoon characters, he turns around and releases Bad Love, his first proper album since 1988's Land Of Dreams and a keeper at that. Produced by the generally reliable team of Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake, Bad Love corrects some of the excesses of Land Of Dreams, a strong album hampered by some misguided songs and a frequently overproduced sound. Here, the emphasis is placed almost entirely on Newman's songs, most of which find him in top form. Bad Love is both the name of the album and its overriding theme, from the aging tough guy pleading with a woman he knows doesn't love him on "Shame" to "I Miss You," an unexpectant apology to a lost love. It's hard to think of a subject better suited to Newman's mixture of cynicism and sentiment, or his ability to create fully formed characters over the course of a three-minute song that contains all the ambiguity of day-to-day life. "Big Hat, No Cattle" captures the not-quite-lamenting confession of a failed family man ("I only know that we're living in an unforgiving land / and a little lie can buy some real big peace of mind"), while "Better Off Dead" offers sage advice to those on the other side of the equation. Newman may have himself in mind on "I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It)," a hard poke at rockers who don't know when to get off the stage, but the fact that it's also Bad Love's weakest track says a couple of things. Though a peerless songsmith, Newman occasionally comes on with the satirical subtlety of a wrecking ball—take the album's "The Great Nations Of Europe," for example—and the fact that "I'm Dead," a song about failing rock stars that rocks harder than anything Newman has ever done, sacrifices a potentially good song for a bad joke provides a perfect example of that problem. But it's also an example of needless self-deprecation: Newman's classic albums (most notably 12 Songs, Sail Away, and Good Old Boys) sound as fresh today as ever, but it's Bad Love that proves he's still needed decades later. Next time, he shouldn't stay away so long.