Some 2007 records I was cautiously looking forward to: Planet Earth, The Mix-Up, The Weirdness, Reformation Post TLC, and All Y'all.

Is it them, or is it me? Or is it all of us? Do we as music fans hold our heroes in too-high regard, forcing them to live up to arbitrary standards that we decided they've met and can never really accomplish again? Is it fair to beat up on Travis Morrison for breaking up his former band and then daring to try something different? Morrison, if anything, is assuredly a musical masochist. His self-admitted heroes, often worshipped via the D-Plan's website (years before the word "blog" crept into popular discourse), were Neil Young and Prince-- two musicians who mangle the expectations of their numerous fans almost yearly. It shouldn't have been a surprise when Morrison, free of the checks and balances of his old band, followed his muse to wherever it would go, even when those ideas were embarrassingly toothless or undercooked on his first solo record (which was either about 9/11 or getting a beatdown in front of the Gap; you pick). But trainwreck that it was, he followed through on it, and as with Young and Prince, fans who don't hate themselves outright might learn to let go of expectation and be prepared to "sit one out," so to speak, and see where the next record takes them.

But is asking fans for that benefit of the doubt too much? All Y'all returns to some of the proud moments and familiar touchstones of the Dismemberment Plan-- the glistening chorus of "As We Proceed" recalls the mellower moods of songs like "The Face of the Earth", and that song's finale as well as many others betray a more rhythmic, layered approach-- and yet, it sounds like the fire has gone out of those ideas. Is it any different than before, really, or have I changed as a listener? The D-Plan were a near-constant soundtrack to my years around the turn of the century-- would anything Morrison ever does afterward hold up?

Not that All Y'all sounds all that much like the Plan, or even like Travistan. Morrison toured behind his first solo record with a three-keyboard band and it shows here. From the subdued three-note groove of "I'm Not Supposed to Like You (But)" to the irascible keyboard burps of "I Do" and "Churchgoer", this is definitely not Morrison's guitar hero record. But if All Y'all fails, it's not for lack of ideas. "As We Proceed" strains to make bongos sound angular in its verses, and while the vocals are assured and the chorus almost charms, the jittery rhythms and hiccup noises wedged in at the end erase much of the goodwill built. It's nice to see him return to a more rhythmic approach, but it's in a song already crammed with ideas that barely gel. Elsewhere, I admire his effort to be frank about sexuality without being predatory or apologetic, and yet I never want to hear the demented Knack-like groove or desperate panting of "You Make Me Feel Like a Freak" ever, ever again.

If only he could hold back a bit: "East Side of the River" has lyrics that start out evocative, but quickly lose focus. Fumbles aside, it's the one of the album's simplest tracks-- a creepy slow jam with a few unexpected percussive sound effects, and that simplicity makes it that much more memorable. Likewise with the very different mood of "Churchgoer", featuring a giddy pre-new jack keyboard line that no one else would dare try, but only someone like Morrison could pull off. It's just that All Y'all sounds terribly disjointed when many of these concepts collide, if not just inane. ("I Do" manages to sound both.) The showy, stuttering rhythms are supposed to make up for the banal high school sentiment of "I'm Not Supposed to Like You (But)", and "Catch Up" is a brave mess of a track: It was only a matter of time until Morrison called in a guest rapper, and while his few contributions on the chorus aren't too distracting, it's still rather incongruous with the fey organ chords and windmill guitar strums. Plus, Morrison's lyrics about unwilling voyeurism coupled with the speed-up and sudden slow-down at the end make for a fairly lame extended metaphor.

It's a bleeding-heart fan's paradox: We keep giving favorite artists more chances because their music meant so much to us at one point in time, even though it gets increasingly less likely it ever will again. If we could listen to this record in a total vacuum, maybe we'd see All Y'all shows a lot of promising ideas with sometimes hoary execution, which is miles of improvement over the inadvisable Travistan. For what it's worth, Morrison still has my benefit of the doubt after All Y'all. It's only eroded just slightly. But what does that say about me...?