Pity the companion album, the quick follow-up record that an artist swears is just as good as the predecessor it was simultaneously recorded with, despite giving it a fraction of the promotional push. And so it is with WARMER, the surprise sequel to Jeff Tweedy’s gracious 2018 acoustic record WARM. “WARMER means as much to me as WARM and might just as easily have been released as the first record of the pair,” Tweedy insists in a statement, even though the album’s very title suggests a secondary position in a sequence.

Adding to the impression that WARMER is something less than Tweedy’s most cherished material is its unceremonious physical release on Record Store Day. But then again, the joy of Tweedy’s recent releases is that they don’t demand ceremony—if anything, they thrive on its absence. After two decades of carrying the mantle of an important indie artist, Tweedy has retreated to his own Chicago studio, where he’s freed himself from expectations with a series of recordings that blur the distance between cutting-room scraps and some of his career-best songs. WARM was a revelation precisely because it wasn’t fishing for prestige. Instead of striving to be a major work, it settled for simply documenting a songwriter in his element.

Recorded entirely alone save for drums from his son Spencer, WARMER doesn’t quite wow like WARM, nor does it offer that initial thrill of hearing an artist reclaim what made them great after a relative drought. It’s a touch more subdued and a little more one-note, seemingly born more of a pleasant itch than a pressing need to create. But the humble magic of WARM carries through, and these songs are as revealing and beguiling as the first batch.

Tweedy’s usually most enjoyable when he’s enjoying himself, and he’s in an especially affable mood for much of the record’s opening half. An acoustic nod to T. Rex, “Family Ghost” is a glammy, hooky pleasure, while the waltzing “Ten Sentences,” with its slide guitar, is a zippy exercise in western swing. The grumpy contingent of Wilco fans who still think that 1999’s Summerteeth was overblown should find these recordings a happy compromise: They’ve got the same open-armed pop sensibilities, but considerably more studio restraint.

Tweedy’s songs are often a good deal more sorrowful than his performances let on. On “Orphan,” he longs for his parents and absolves them in death (“Bring them back to me/I will forgive them, let them love me again,” he begs.) He ponders his own demise on “Empty Head,” and on “Landscape” he describes the creative process in trying terms: “Pushing words onto the page/Patching where the heart is frayed.”

And yet, despite his grief, he’s steadfast in his refusal to romanticize suffering. One of the most powerful takeaways from Tweedy’s 2018 memoir titled Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) was his dismantling of the myth of the tortured artist. “I think that artists create in spite of suffering, not because of suffering,” he wrote. He mirrors that messaging on “Ultra Orange Room,” where he shakes the belief that “there is no mother like pain.” “When I was young, I wanted a masterpiece,” he sings, “Every thought I’d come across never would belong to me.” Throughout WARMER he downplays lyrics that a lesser songwriter would have mined for misery, but these songs are no less moving for that understatement. Sometimes it’s the heaviest sentiments that call for the lightest touch.