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Up-and-coming country star Justin Townes Earle performs at Manship Theatre Dec. 1.

On the song “Workin’ for the MTA” from his new album Harlem River Blues, Justin Townes Earle repeats a line at the end, “This ain't my daddy's train.” It's a brave statement to make when your daddy is beloved country outlaw Steve Earle—and you have an album of songs that carefully and lovingly bend folk and country traditions in a way that reflects your young self—but it's one perhaps you have to make if you're named Justin Townes Earle.

It seems the son has suffered many of the demons that plagued the father; he was fired from his father's band, the Dukes, because of an escalating drug problem, but after an overdose at the precipice of adulthood, he penned an ambitious EP, Yuma. He possessed a plain voice and hankering for sinewy, evocative lyrics—like his other namesake, singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt—but he came into his own with his ambitious second full-length album Midnight at the Movies in 2009. It's an alternative country dream of a record, a tangle of pedigree and Americana styles and wide-eyed determinism. His longing to become someone radiates through his sweet cover of the Replacements’ “Can't Hardly Wait.”

Now, with Harlem River Blues, Earle seems to feel more comfortable with who people think he should be. The songs are more relaxed, and the production is, in places, pitch-perfect. “Christchurch Woman” hovers at the edge of adult-contemporary, like Chris Isaak without being quite as showbiz about it. The cozy loneliness of "One More Night in Brooklyn" cuts through you like a dripping faucet in the night until you finally get up with it. There is the rockabilly swing of “Move Over Mama,” the sunset rambler's ruminations of “Wanderin'” and the naked admissions of “Learning to Cry.” Harlem River Blues runs the gamut.

The younger Earle is a young man still, and his wandering eyes find many identities to pursue. “Slippin' and Slidin'” finds him in the darkest corner of a Muscle Shoals ballad, wrenching every teardrop out of sad lyrics taken from a million tearjerkers before him. He knows he “Should have learned better, old enough to know,” as the point glowingly emerges that Earle is wise enough to know he doesn’t have any real wisdom yet. It's the bravest thing a kid dragging around his kind of expectations can say. This and “Ain't Waitin'” are perhaps the corollaries to his Replacements cover, where he sees his girl in the kitchen and, “Puts on a country station on that satellite radio. I ain't waitin’. I just love her so.” With Harlem River Blues, it appears his wait is over, and his particular train has finally pulled in.

Justin Townes Earle performs at the Manship Theatre, Wednesday, Dec. 1 at 7:30 p.m. Visit manshiptheatre.org for tickets. justintownesearle.com