Paul Simon isn’t the most prolific of artists—this is only his 13th solo album since he and Art Garfunkel called it quits in 1970. He takes his time because repetition is anathema to him: Exploring new rhythmic routes, fashioning stories yet to be told, finding the right sounds and the people to invent them and honing his expression, he chips away in the studio, endeavoring to make each album count. That said, Stranger to Stranger often feels like a holding pattern, instead of the great leaps forward that were Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints. Of course, it’s impeccably crafted from the ground up: “The Werewolf,” the opener, is a polyrhythmic, wry meditation on death, survival and lesser things, juxtaposing slide guitar, a full horn section, Clap! Clap!’s beats and loops, and a deliberately cool and subdued Simon delivery. But “Wristband,” up next, is a toss-away trifle, and so it goes throughout, alternately brilliant, precious, insightful and sometimes too, too clever. Produced by Roy Halee, the now-80-something former S&G helmsman, Stranger to Stranger is, attimes, also surprisingly overfamiliar: “Cool Papa Bell” isn’t so much a tribute to the late Negro Baseball League superstar (billed as “the fastest man on Earth,” as Simon acknowledges) as a calculated opportunity to revisit the African instrumentation and rhythms Simon so loves, and “In a Parade” is little more than a pile of drum sounds over which he largely recites a single line (“I can’t talk now, I’m in a parade”) ad infinitum, surrounded by silliness. When he does hit it though, as on the impeccable, big-hearted title track and the album-closing ballad “Insomniac’s Lullaby” (featuring jazz drum legend Jack DeJohnette and background vocals from Bobby McFerrin, alongside a collection of rare instruments), sung in that voice that hasn’t aged a day, it’s a quick reminder that Paul Simon remains one of our living treasures.