"Twilight" is the album that comes on at 2:30 a.m., when the party's over and you're slumped on the couch, summoning up the strength to leave. And then a song like "Questions" (key quatrain: "Where is the place where everyone goes/Where are my enemies? Where are my foes?/Where is that distant light coming from?/Where will I be when I ain't got none?") comes on, and your motivation is suddenly clear.

Those lyrics are representative, but by no means the best that Peets has to offer. Here is some incontrovertible advice from a man who considers Jackson Browne his co-pilot: "Get down, get down, get down `til your body goes numb/get down `til the bossman come.'' Keep in mind that: a) this is a white man singing these words, and b) this is not a dance song. I guess there's a certain perverse accomplishment in being so relentlessly banal, in forging a recording that is equal parts laid-back attitude and comfy platitude.

Peets is a porch-front philosopher, content to pose pseudo-mystical questions while stroking his lab and King David beard in equal measure. It's possible that "Blueberry Suds" is a cautionary tale about mixing PBR with sketchy `shrooms, but it's probably just a loose transcription of a dream Peets had while snoozing in his hammock one summer afternoon.

Peets makes Don Henley look like a prophet and Dan Fogelberg look like an innovator. He offers the fatuous spirit of `70s California rock without the redeeming energy that cocaine brought to that dubiously celebrated crowd. Instead he gives us the quaalude moods of the Eagles without their nominal melodies. It would be hard to find a less impressive, less inspired collection of songs. Want country-tinged, introspective music about doubt and yearning? Try Grant Lee Phillips. Hell, try Jackson Browne, if he isn't too busy riding shotgun on one of Peets' aimless trips through the desert of his own mind.

Nick Peets is a Portland-based singer and songwriter. For information on him visit nickpeets.com. "Twilight" can be purchased through CD Baby or iTunes.