"Surreal," "Whimsical" and "Psychedelic" are the standard adjectives that are applied to Robyn Hitchcock's oeuvre, but with his brilliant new album, Globe of Frogs, you can add words like well crafted, sublime and even introspective.

When it comes to lyrics, Hitchcock can make Michael Stipe seem as clear as The New York Times, and he's often quite silly – as on songs like "Tropical Flesh Mandala" or "Unsettled." His Lennon-Dylan smoke screen of psychedelic impressionism can mean many things to many people. But it also reveals more than a little of his sphinxlike personality – once you crack the code. Hitchcock can sing something like "Mental dungheap flurry overshot the sun you breeze/In a hollow shoe, the mincemeat seethes for you" (in "Unsettled") and somehow sound like he means it.

Even if the lyrical terrain is bizarre, the music is quite accessible – catchy, even. Hitchcock writes pure pop music of a distinctly British stripe – it's clever and tuneful and filled with nice harmonies – as he did when he led the Soft Boys in the late Seventies. With their levitating guitar figures, "Chinese Bones" (which features longtime Hitchcock fan Peter Buck on guitar) and "Vibrating" typify the ethereal, melodic atmosphere of the record. After the wiggy conundrums of albums past, Hitchcock, now in his midthirties, has settled down to make music of real beauty.

Musical allusions – to the Velvet Underground, Donovan, David Bowie, even the Rolling Stones – abound. The irresistibly sunny "Flesh Number One" cops the jangle the Beatles copped from the Byrds – and thanks to the harmonies of Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook, it sounds so much like the Fabs it's frightening.

Most of the ten songs mention fish or water. Both motifs appear in "Luminous Rose," a slow-motion sea chantey that hits hard after the preceding three rockers; it opens with a chilling scene of drowned sailors floating in the ocean and concludes with a sobering thought: "God finds you naked and he leaves you dying/What happens in between is up to you." "Balloon Man" provides comic relief with another favorite Hitchcock image: bulbous heads. During a surreal odyssey through midtown Manhattan, a balloon man's head explodes and splatters the narrator with "tomatoes, hummus, chick peas and some strips of skin."

Hitchcock has been hyped to the gills in college and alternative circles, but for once, the hype is right. (RS 521)

MICHAEL AZERRAD