Ah, how refreshing. And incredibly rare in the world of music.

It's hard to believe that Intersections is McRobert's fifth album. Didn't he just appear on the scene a few years ago? Yeah, but he's managed to consistently release one new album every year since his first disc in 1999. That's either commitment or an unstoppable creative flood. Or both.

Intersections finds him in a stop-and-smell-the-roses kind of mood, re-examining his life and his surroundings with methodical, thoughtful intention. Rather than melancholy wistfulness, he makes a strong case for making the latin motto "carpe diem" a universal principle. "Movie of My Life" finds him wanting to not sit back and watch his life pass him by, while "Beautiful To Me" praises the beauty of God, as seen in the world around us. This new sensitivity to grabbing hold of life is perfectly summed up on "The Whole Way Home," where he sings, "I want to live the life I'm living / I want to feel the road I'm on".

His musicianship, likewise, only gets better with time. McRoberts is one of those rare few artists who can carry an entire song and make it compelling, with nothing but his acoustic guitar, his voice, and his own words. "Haunted" demonstrates this well, captivating the listener with almost nothing but those three elements, and relating the familiar story of one who thought he'd outrun his past failures until they popped up again.

Producer Masaki mixes things just right -- the acoustic elements show a folk tenderness in one moment, and then amp up to funk proportions. Best of all, the background music comes up well short of the "wall of sound" that most modern CDs try to cram down our throats. McRoberts' voice and lyrics are the real focus here, and the two are perfectly married. He's grown remarkably relaxed and comfortable with his own voice, utilizing his full range throughout the disc, and he sounds great.

Justin McRoberts has successfully refined his sensibilities into a pleasing, simple concoction of acoustic folk/pop, gritty vocals, and daringly honest lyrics. And it's a wonderful testament to the creative overflow that can happen when an artist takes the time to become amazingly good at what he does, and then actually has the freedom to do create he wants.

Most record labels could learn a lot from this formula.

Justin McRoberts is wonderfully down-to-earth. There is no hint of "image" in anything he does; instead, he seems mostly interested in being as human, as honest, and as real as possible.

Ah, how refreshing. And incredibly rare in the world of music.

It's hard to believe that Intersections is McRobert's fifth album. Didn't he just appear on the scene a few years ago? Yeah, but he's managed to consistently release one new album every year since his first disc in 1999. That's either commitment or an unstoppable creative flood. Or both.

Intersections finds him in a stop-and-smell-the-roses kind of mood, re-examining his life and his surroundings with methodical, thoughtful intention. Rather than melancholy wistfulness, he makes a strong case for making the latin motto "carpe diem" a universal principle. "Movie of My Life" finds him wanting to not sit back and watch his life pass him by, while "Beautiful To Me" praises the beauty of God, as seen in the world around us. This new sensitivity to grabbing hold of life is perfectly summed up on "The Whole Way Home," where he sings, "I want to live the life I'm living / I want to feel the road I'm on".