After an enviable thirteen years of music making, there’s no denying that local roots-rock quintet Pondering Judd is well into the band equivalent of middle age. Yet their recently released fifth album bears no indication that the group is suffering from the stereotypical mid-life crisis. To the contrary, “Lonesome Heart Strangers” is by and large a mature, reserved effort, reflecting a band that is wholeheartedly embracing this phase of life. Like the familiar creak of the living room rocking chair heard faintly from another room, the warm thump of the floor tom that softly punctuates the chorus to “When You’re Ready,” the first song on “Lonesome Heart Strangers,” is a minor event, but it’s also a particularly satisfying one, and just the right choice for the part. There are moments like this throughout the album, of subtly and instinctually good songwriting, that are proof the band members are fine musicians and veterans of the studio process.

“Dry as Fire” is driven by a shuffling snare, good and present, and layered with subtle ducking and weaving pedal steel and nice ensemble backing harmonies. On “Maybellene” and “Let It Seed,” the twisting, jam-inflected lead lines are matched and countered by short, punchy vocal phrasing. The longer ballad, “Too Hard,” (reminiscent in sound and subject of alt-country rambler Steve Earle) keeps things interesting the whole way through with well-placed harmonies, a snaking, fuzzy guitar line and a rousing chorus that swells up from the verse.

Still all this adds up to something less than a great album. Pondering Judd is primarily a vocal-driven band, yet it’s at its weakest vocally. For one, singer Martin England can overdramatize and occasionally overextend his gruff tenor. But more critically, despite the obvious effort put into lyric writing, the words often hit slightly off the mark (for example, “my bearded chin is overgrown”) and meaning isn’t gained, but lost, or confused in the effort to be poetic. For this listener, at least, it makes the songs less persuasive overall. And one wonders if England isn’t totally convinced, either. As he sings over that great drumbeat in “When You’re Ready,” “Here I wait, when you’re ready. You don’t have to clear it with him,” he intones, not with resignation or hope, but with a sense of detachment that’s incongruous to the words, as if he’s connecting with them on an intellectual level but not quite, emotionally. Indeed, I found myself singing along with him, but I wasn’t sure why.

Pondering Judd Dover Brick House CD release party: Friday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. with Andy Happel and Saturday, Sept. 20, 4-7pm. The Saturday show is all ages and includes a free barbecue and the Lemon Fresh Kids performing beforehand.