David Lowery has never been easy to pin down. Across four decades, he’s veered from absurdist indie provocateur to alt-country architect, from platinum-selling frontman to music business professor, from producing Gwar to writing songs about laundromats. Now, with Fathers, Sons and Brothers, the 28-track, career-spanning solo collection, Lowery turns the lens inward for what might be his most personal project yet - not a greatest hits, but a musical memoir dressed in all the wry, honest, and unpredictable colors that have defined his work since the '80s.

Lowery first made noise with Camper Van Beethoven, a band whose songs often felt like inside jokes you were lucky enough to overhear. “Take The Skinheads Bowling” and “The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon” were college radio staples, and they were surreal, brainy gut-punches that helped kickstart the American indie rock movement. Then came Cracker, formed with guitarist Johnny Hickman, where Lowery swapped the violins for twangy guitars and helped blaze a trail through early '90s alt-country with hits like “Low,” “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now),” and “Get Off This.”

While Fathers, Sons and Brothers could have easily been a hits package, it's a history lesson - Lowery's own. The 3LP / 2CD set weaves together three previously online-only albums (In The Shadow of the Bull, Leaving Key Member Clause, and Vending Machine), adds four unreleased songs, and includes four re-recorded tracks that serve as both callbacks and reimaginings.

“Over the years, many have encouraged me to write an autobiography,” Lowery says. “However, it never really appealed to me. So, in lieu of an uninteresting written autobiography I’ve made this record.” What unfolds instead is a tribute to the people and places that shaped him; from family to bandmates, from the dusty highways of touring life to the echo chambers of recording studios.

David Lowery’s musical resume is sprawling. Besides his aforementioned albums, he’s produced for Counting Crows and Sparklehorse and co-founded Sound of Music Studios in Richmond, VA, where artists as far apart as D’Angelo and Gwar have recorded. And he’s become a respected voice in music education, earning a PhD and teaching at the University of Georgia.