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Cass McCombs emerged as a great lyricist from the first EP and never wavered since. However it took a few releases to settle on a musical identity, after cycling through albums that tried New Wave, Loops, Indie Pop, Country, and even Dissonance on for size. On Catacombs the musical identity took shape, all of the base components were there even if they weren't married gracefully. On the stunning Wit's End, McCombs finally made a record that was idiosyncratic and fully realized in both music and lyric.I saw McCombs on the Wit's End tour and while he filled the venue, the languid pace and hushed singing of the new material was easily shouted over by barroom patrons. Not a very comfortable performance to be sure. Perhaps in reaction, McCombs released Humor Risk, a lesser set of songs but one that reestablished a rock-backbeat that could probably play better to a loud room.The Big Wheel and Others shows that Humor Risk wasn't a tangent, and more of a realignment. All of the tracks here owe a debt to country-rock both in their rhythms and the directness of lyric. There's none of Wit's End's baroque folk or dissonant touches. Thematically, most of the record stays in the American West, focusing on the same class of holy loser that could fill a Springsteen album. The modern world manages to creep in throughout, whether citing dead punk rockers or through the ageless "I screw up on love" type number.The Big Wheel is an album of minor pleasures. There's nothing quite as stunning as 'You Saved My Life' or 'County Line'. The sequencing doesn't fit with classic double albums, it starts and ends with minor numbers, only picking up momentum in the middle of the set.Highlights include both versions of Brighter, one of which handled solo by Karen Black serves as a fitting swan song for the actress, "My Name Written in Water", "Honesty is no Excuse", "Sooner Cheat Death than Love"