Minneapolis-based Mason Jennings escaped into solitude with his electric guitar and emerged with Blood of Man, his second album on Jack Johnson’s Brushfire label and his eighth total. Although Johnson and Jennings are often considered to be nearly synonymous—they both are soft-singing folky acoustic bearded men with roots in surf culture—Jennings’ work has an acute lyricism and spiritual gravity that sets him apart from the all-too-digestible Johnson. Blood Of Man is a reverb-tinged, intimate offering that meditates on those good old themes of death, God, and childhood, but with an eerie honesty that bears attention. With Crash Kings. All ages. HOLLIS WONG-WEAR

Fri., Sept. 25, 8 p.m., 2009