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Since Jonny Lang began his career as a blues revivalist, it can sometimes be surprising how thoroughly he attempts to connect with the modern world on his albums. On 2013's Fight for My Soul, he dug deep into his interior world, but on its successor Lang looks outside of himself and attempts to sort through the ball of confusion that's 2017. All throughout Signs, he's looking at a world in chaos and attempting to find markers to lead him through. Some of these guideposts are indeed familiar. He remains a disciple of '70s blues-rock, especially Hendrix, and he does frequently crank up the amps and vamps, but he spends nearly as much time settling into soulful grooves.

Of the three Bang on a Can founder composers, David Lang’s music has always been the glassiest, the sparest, and for some listeners the most precious. In recent years, his aesthetic has become leaner still, paring down already simple material to gaunt extremes in something approaching neo-plainchant. The national anthems (note the lower case; nothing vainglorious here ) takes fragments of text from the anthems of all 193 United Nations member states and unfolds at speaking speed, with plenty of room for breaths between phrases and plenty of clarity to the words. It has the feel of sad and eerie intoning. The Los Angeles choir clinches the right sound for Lang – unflinching, spellbound – while the Calder Quartet gives sleek accompaniment. Also on the disc is a new choral version of Lang’s little match girl passion, the piece originally for four voices that won him the Pulitzer prize in 2008 and which, in the mouths of many, becomes a sort of collective prayer in the congregational tradition of Bach’s chorales.

David Lang's the little match girl passion, for vocal quartet doubling on percussion instruments, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008. It's a strong, striking piece with a surprisingly potent emotional punch. Part of its effectiveness derives from the story itself, which is so achingly poignant that it can hardly fail to raise a lump in the throat. The text is primarily compiled from the story by Hans Christian Andersen and from familiar sections from Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which sound fresh and new in English translation. Lang's clear-eyed avoidance of sentimentality saves the story from the bathos into which it could easily sink in a less skillful musical setting.

On 2003's Long Time Coming, Jonny Lang made the first turn from his rap as an itinerant blues-rocker to being a spiritually inspired rock and pop songwriter. Producer Marti Frederiksen took Lang's tunes and glossed them to the breaking point, leaving the album an unfocused gobbledygook set of songs that had no center. Three years later, Lang returns with Turn Around. And the title does not refer to him turning back to his blues guitar slinger roots. Instead, the title refers to the biblical term that is the definition of the word "repent." (No mistake.) Lang's overt spirituality comes ringing through the mix created by Drew Ramsey Lang and Shannon Sanders. Turn Around is funkier, dressed in contemporary gospel, gritty rock and yes, the blues. Lang's still got a way to go as a songwriter, but the material here is infinitely better than it was on his last outing.