After opening for Guster last year and signing to Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records label in February, Mason Jennings was poised to become the next singer-songwriter to break big in the jam-band scene. But instead of aiming for the mainstream, his seventh album finds him returning to his coffeehouse roots. Typically executed with little more than an acoustic guitar, drums and piano, Jennings' songs have a charming, everyman sensibility, particularly when he croons in an endearingly off-key tenor on hushed ballads like "Something About Your Love" and "Fighter Girl." And his sense of humor leavens the mood of these sparsely arranged tunes: On the Kumbaya-inspired "I Love You and Buddha Too," he even shouts out Jesus and Krishna, improbably rhyming "Guru Dey" with "Mohammed." Jennings saves the song from becoming too hokey by working up nice groove and a handclap-accented backbeat while Johnson hoots and hollers in the background. But other songs devolve into pure goofiness, especially on tracks like "Your New Man," where the sing-song melody weirdly evokes "Frere Jacques." If it weren't for his PG-13 lyrics — "Trust me, he'll get way too drunk / at your Christmas party" — its the kind of thing that could pass for a children's tune.