Amazingly, Lucinda Williams’ rambling, 20-track double-dose of Southern discomfort, Down Where the Sprit Meets the Bone (Highway 20 Records), is her most cohesive statement since 1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Since that landmark album, she’s released several strong collections, each with a few standout tracks that support the argument that she’s one of America’s greatest living songwriters. None of those albums, however, articulated a vision as compelling as this one. Her subjects range from brutal injustice (“West Memphis”) to crass politics (“Foolishness”) to fruitless religiosity (the forceful anger of “Everything But the Truth”). But the theme, even of those topical songs, is always heartache. She approaches it head-on in the tired and tender “Cold Day in Hell,” in which she inhabits a character both determined and wistful. The angry words of the refrain eek out tinged with regret, embodying the contradiction of the woman at the heart of the song.

The album opener, “Compassion,” based on an empathic poem by Lucinda’s father, advises, “For those you encounter, have compassion, even if they don’t want it.” It’s a mission statement that sets the stage for the tiny dramas of the album’s 19 remaining songs, in which Williams attempts to excavate (as the opener describes them) “what wars are going on, down there where the spirit meets the bone.” The other end of the album is a 10-minute cover of JJ Cale’s “Magnolia,” with a lyric so simple, the broken yearning is unmistakable: “Whippoorwill’s singing, soft summer breeze makes me think of my baby I left down in New Orleans.” She stretches the short verses out, inserting quiet, considered guitar solos and intoning the title again and again as the song slowly cracks into pieces, almost disappearing before a triumphant crescendo in the last moments. It might seem like an epic reverb-saturated guitar jam would be an indulgent way to close a double-album, but in fact, this expansive outpouring is the perfect ending, a release for all that feeling she’s imparted over the previous two hours.

Williams’ rusty, quivering voice and its deep well of emotion bring something special to even her most middle-of-the-road material. When she’s dealing with something truly exceptional, though, a deceptively simple song might get elevated into the rarefied sphere of the masterpieces. This double album more than justifies its length and breadth with a generous helping of such unforgettable moments.