Paul Lippens is the guy who sits down next to you at the bar, lights a smoke, orders a beer and starts talking about the Red Sox as if he's known you forever. At least that's how I met him. I bet you did too.

His songs are the same way: brand new, yet familiar -- as if you've met them before, but can't figure out just when or exactly where.

Here's a record that defies carbon dating. Here's a record that's timeless and timely, pretty and ragged, like the sun-cracked leather on an old dashboard. There's a patina to these songs that evokes the days when gas was cheap and cigarettes didn't have filters. Yet they're as contemporary as this morning's hangover and just as rough.

Paul's Big Radio (PBR) - the name couldn't be more fitting - didn't take the easy road on this debut effort. When you make a record live in the studio, as this one was, you don't get pristine, radio-ready results. You get cracked vocals and imperfect segues. You get music the way it's actually played. But just as it's the sand that begets the pearl, it's the collision of craft and imprecision that creates music that lasts longer than it takes to play it.

This is music built to last. It's a natural fact.