Folk duo The Dutchess and The Duke split up last year to many music lovers’ dismay. Their particular brand of painful, honest songwriting and heartfelt singing was tough to beat, and drew much critical acclaim.

Now, Jesse Lortz has returned triumphantly with solo project Case Studies and this debut album. Armed with his guitar, a few friends, a secluded cabin, and a head and heart full of nostalgic reminiscences of love found and love lost, he has produced something brilliant. On “My Silver Hand” with the help of a lovely lady, he sings, “I’d like to still be in your bed/but I would settle for your life instead,” with a buoyancy and fragility that is equal parts sorrow and hope. He is a skillful storyteller and waxes poetic on the tribulations of monogamy, the recapitulation of sexual experiences, the fears of loneliness, and the resilience of the human spirit. “You Folded Up My Blanket Like We Were Already Lovers” reads like a personal diary entry, Lortz’s brutal honesty creeping up from the depths of his mind. When he sings, “I’m a long, long, long, long, long, long way from home/and I like it” he sounds as though he is still in the process of convincing himself of his own words.

His guitar playing is powerful and compliments his voice well, playing to the intricacies of both and keeping the whole album simple, with a distinct West Coast vibe that is equal parts wild west barroom bard (“Secrets”, “California Ghost Story”) and flannel-clad secluded northwest poet (“Dagger”, “The Eagle, or The Serpent”). He doesn’t bottle up his words into pretty, consolidated verses but lets his mind go as if he were writing stream of consciousness, his thoughts pouring out naked and pure, his voice harmonizing with pain and pleasure on every track. This refreshing, stripped-down style adds to the complexity of Lortz’s lyrics, and forces the listener to keep coming back, again and again. Reader be warned: you’ll be hooked.

(Sacred Bones, no address provided)