Either the Omaha wunderkind has already hit his creative peak, or the contributions of his Bright Eyes cohorts Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott have long been overlooked in favor of heaping praise upon the figure at the rotating collective’s helm. That’s not to say Conor Oberst’s first wide-release solo effort is an outright disappointment; far from it. But the vocalist/guitarist fully intended to get physically, mentally and spiritually lost in the recording process and, even more so than his usual hyper-introspection, the isolating tactics manifest themselves in a rough, rustic vanity project of decidedly limited scope.

Recorded in Mexico, the self-titled travelogue shares a passion for exploration with last year’s Cassadaga. But while the earlier effort explored backwoods mysticism, Oberst takes a more fatalistic approach, tackling the final road’s end on “Danny Callahan,” “I Don’t Want to Die (In a Hospital)” and “Milk Thistle,” the latter of which, along with such hushed, regretful numbers as “Lenders in the Temple” and “Eagle on a Pole,” deftly recalls 2005’s acoustic I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. While their lyrical chops have long been compared by critics, Oberst has never sounded as much like Dylan as he does on the jangly, shoulder-shrugging “Get Well Cards.” Elsewhere, flourishes of the Grateful Dead (“Souled Out!!!”), Ryan Adams (“Sausalito”) and Tom Petty (“Moab”) also appear.

Though a handful of upbeat time signatures might claim otherwise, for being recorded in an environment so diverse and colorful, the collection is decidedly dark. There are snatches of indigent horns, Spanish phrasing and geographic shout-outs, but musical equivalents of the country’s prevalent death masks also prevail. Even when the naïve narrator of “Moab” proclaims, “There’s nothin’ that the road cannot heal,” it’s with the implication that, as much as he wishes it were true, even Oberst knows there’s ultimately no escaping reality.

The bottom line: ***1/2