Bob Bradshaw is a storyteller. And like any good storyteller, he possesses the ability to transform himself right before your very eyes, to not only craft a compelling cast of characters, but to inhabit them with complete and utter conviction. Take a listen to Irish-born songwriter’s captivating ninth album, The Ghost Light, and you’ll find a true chameleon at work. One moment he’s an impulsive daredevil plunging over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel; the next, a sea-weary pirate lured to his death by a choir of sirens. More often than not, though, he’s simply one of us, just an ordinary, everyday soul searching for meaning, hope, and redemption wherever he can find it. Praised as a writer of “instant classics” by No Depression, Bradshaw created The Ghost Light in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s by no means a quarantine album. The recordings here feature lush, full band arrangements, and the songs are utterly timeless, drawing on the kind of fundamental humanity that binds us all as they grapple with heartbreak and regret, memory and nostalgia, loneliness and liberation. Bradshaw writes with a cinematic eye for detail on the album, often slipping his most profound revelations between the lines, and his delivery is subtle and nuanced to match. The result is a record as open as it is empathetic, a sharp, transportive collection that calls to mind everything from John Hiatt to Fred Eaglesmith in its potent mix of folk erudition and rock and roll urgency.