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Talk to British singer and composer Chris Hicken long enough and you might hear him make reference to a Charles Darwin exhibit he s seen in New York, recommend a documentary about Freud s grandson Edward Bernays, or recall a conversation he s had with his wife about the late Republican political strategist Lee Atwater. So it s not surprising that his thoughtful, informed reflections find their way into the songs on his new album, Better for the Metaphor a literate, lovingly crafted pop affair that displays Hicken s talent for keenly observed insights about the complicated times in which we live. Better for the Metaphor offers a perceptive take on the American sense of entitlement ( Go Getter ), the manufactured culture of fear ( Safe ), the dangers of trumpeting one s ideology ( My House ), a 50s style duet on the ambivalence of the Universe (Goodbye Life), and even a sing-songy ditty about using anti-depressants to make it all go away ( Medicated ). It s food for thought, but it goes down easy thanks to Hicken s prodigious gift for melody (practically a birthright for a British singer-songwriter). I have an incredible sweet tooth for melody, he says. So I decided to embrace it, to make the tunes poppy and catchy and accessible I hate heavy-handed. To do it, Hicken, who produced the album himself, layers his expressive, soulful tenor atop a rich blend of acoustic and Spanish guitars, piano, strings, bassoon, and random snatches of sound he s been collecting since he began to write the album in September of 2005, where he relocated from Manhattan to a secluded log cabin in the Catskill Mountains. Hicken says. It was like being in a sweat lodge; it just came pouring out of me, the isolation enabled me to focus in a way that I d never been able to before. He recorded the album over a 12-month period with the help of a host of top musicians, whose previous employers had included: Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Lambchop, Britney Spears and Space Hog.