As always, Chris Smither’s fluid blues-based fingerpicking and meticulous songcraft don’t call attention to themselves. But once you’ve been drawn into the opening track, “Don’t Call Me Stranger,” Time Stands Still dazzles insistently with its musicality and warmth. Smither’s strong, airy acoustic work is augmented only by his own steady foot-tapping, producer David “Goody” Goodrich’s acoustic and electric guitar rhythms and leads, and Zak Trojano’s discreet drumming. The minimalist blend, variously recalling the instrumental sound of Ian and Sylvia, Fred Neil, and the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty, provides sturdy trellises for seven originals and singular interpretations of Bob Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” Frank Hutchison’s “Miner’s Blues” from the 1920s, and Mark Knopfler’s “Madame Geneva’s.” Smither’s social commentary first cropped up on 2006’s Leave the Light On, and here, in his restrained, dusty voice, he wryly puts the screws to the greed and delusion behind contemporary economic woes (“Surprise, Surprise”). But the album’s philosophical center is “I Don’t Know.” Responses to his daughter’s questions about life’s mysteries become Zen koans—“How could I be nowhere if I’m here today?”—and sage advice from a 65-year-old pilgrim to children of any age: “The wisest answer’s the one you learned a long time ago / I don’t know.” (Signature Sounds, signaturesounds.com)