Six decades in, and Robyn Hitchcock still won’t sit still — thank god for that. The legendary British singer-songwriter has just shared “How To Feel Alright,” a lean, swaggering new rocker that heralds the arrival of his 25th solo studio album, The Confuser, out Friday, July 24 via Tiny Ghost Records. It’s his first full collection of brand-new original material in nearly four years, and pre-orders are live now.

Listen to “How To Feel Alright” on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/search/Robyn%20Hitchcock%20How%20To%20Feel%20Alright

“I love to rock out my feelings — all of my feelings: up and down, positive and negative, flaming and somber,” Hitchcock says of the track. “It’s what music is for, after all: to unleash your desires, frustrations, anguish, and delight in three-minute bursts that some people can even dance to.”

The song is a small clinic in what makes Hitchcock Hitchcock — melodic bite, philosophical mischief, and just enough grit to leave a mark. Old Soft Boys bandmate Kimberley Rew turns up to deliver the slide guitar on the choruses and a glorious dive-bomb at the tail end of the track, while Hitchcock himself handles the lead — “yaysville!” as he puts it. When he sent the song to Johnny Marr, Marr’s verdict was simply: “Bo Syddley.” High praise, elegantly compressed.

“How To Feel Alright” follows the album’s earlier singles, the existential anthem “I Am This Thing” and the gleefully apocalyptic “My Dead Astronaut,” a J.G. Ballard-nodding “rockin’ party song for a new dystopia.” Together, the three tracks map out the shape of The Confuser: a record that traverses Hitchcock’s familiar preoccupations — love, the cosmos, and the whole strange gap between the luck of birth and the bitter end — with the verve of someone who still has something to prove.

Recorded in Hitchcock’s longtime home base of Nashville with producers Brad Jones (Josh Rouse, Chuck Prophet) and Jordan Lehning (Kacey Musgraves, Rodney Crowell), The Confuser features a knockout Music City lineup: electric guitarist Jeremy Fetzer (Steelism, Lambchop), bassist Todd Bolden, and drummer Eric Slick (Dr. Dog, Adrian Belew, Taylor Swift). Gillian Welch drops in for vocals on “Ghost in Sunlight,” and Kimberley Rew lends additional guitar to four tracks, including the new single.

The full tracklist runs: “I Am This Thing,” “How To Feel Alright,” “My Dead Astronaut,” “Breathless,” “Ghost in Sunlight,” “Growing From The Ruins,” “The Vanishing Kind,” “Yesterday’s Rain,” “Wasted,” and “Monday For Me.” From the skewed strut of “My Dead Astronaut” to the music-hall psychedelia of album closer “Wasted,” it’s the sound of a veteran carrying the flame for a very particular strain of songcraft — verse, chorus, middle eight, harmonies, guitar solos, and, in his words, “free-range lyrics.”

“One of my roles has been to keep a certain kind of music alive,” Hitchcock says. “I didn’t invent this field of music, but I’ve perpetuated it. I’ve just kept that approach to music alive… I’m very lucky to be able to do this. I can’t believe I’m still allowed to do it. But nobody’s stopped me, and I’m kind of touching wood that I can carry on doing it a bit longer.”

Fans will get plenty of chances to see him do exactly that. Hitchcock is currently in the middle of his most extensive North American full-band run in over a decade, with June dates rolling through Woodstock, Ardmore, Jersey City, Allston, Annapolis, Carrboro, Asheville, and Lawrence. From there, the tour heads across the UK and Ireland in September and October — Saint Leonards-on-Sea, Cambridge, Ipswich, Cardiff, Manchester, Gateshead, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Galway, Hebden Bridge, Reading, Bath, Twyford, and a marquee London stop at Union Chapel — before continuing on to Paris, Landsberg Am Lech, Berlin, Bergen, Trondheim, Drammen, Randaberg, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Helsinki. More dates are still to be announced.

Pre-order The Confuser, cue up “How To Feel Alright” for the drive home, and grab a ticket while you can — Hitchcock’s not slowing down, and neither should you. Full tour details and tickets are at robynhitchcock.com/tour-1.