A Few Stars Apart opens with "We'll Be Alright," a moment of reassuring stillness that acts as a comfort and a keynote for the fourth major-label album from Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real. The consoling words of "We'll Be Alright" certainly speak to the uncertainty that ran rampant during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time where Nelson found himself quarantined with family. A period of reflection resulted in most of the songs on A Few Stars Apart, while the album itself was recorded in Nashville with producer Dave Cobb. The contrast between the music's introspective origins and its full-blooded realization is what fuels A Few Stars Apart, which feels lean and purposeful in a way Turn Off the News, Build a Garden and its accompanying Naked Garden did not. Promise of the Real don't reveal any new tricks here, yet they seem reinvigorated just getting back to the business of making music, while Nelson's inward gaze helped him sharpen his songwriting -- so much so that he gets away with a fresh spin on the biblical canard "god won't give us more than we can handle." Like this well-known phrase, the comforts A Few Stars Apart offer may not be original, but part of their power lies in their familiarity: it's the sound of tradition moving forward through the bad times and into the good ones. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine