Ben Lee is both one of Australia's best songwriters and loosest artistic cannons.

Stylistically, his work has spanned from ramshackle indie-rock to tripped-out soundscapes and unrepentant pop polish. Over the past two decades, his quality of material has run from the indisputably classic to the utterly anodyne. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising to learn that Freedom, Love & The Recuperation Of The Human Mind is (merely?) a solid collection of pretty folk songs. Beautifully produced, sparsely arranged and featuring just nine songs, Lee's latest is small, contained, precise and straightforward. The songs themselves are lyrically reflective and, musically, relatively simple.

At first listen, some may baulk at the album's inoffensive palette of clean acoustic guitar and quasi-spiritual sentimentality. However, Lee is, outside of the occasional overwrought lyric, in peak songwriting form — and the album only grows more endearing and evocative with each subsequent listen. The Enemy Within is a clear highpoint: buoyed by a quiet flourish of organ and a lightly rambling vocal rhythm, it's a tune that captures all of the bittersweet beauty and craftsmanship of Lee's best work as a songwriter. But, every song is, at the very least, a solid number. If McCartney dropped an album as quietly focussed and consistent, you'd go home happy.

It doesn't scale the commercial or artistic ambitions of his prior work - but Lee should be very proud of this little piece of beauty.