When an artist subtitles his previous collection “A Solstice Ritual,” you know his muse is going to require deep thought on your end, or at least concentrated listening. And yet, this Covington native’s reach only occasionally exceeds his grasp. His blend of airy jazz-rock and folk sincerity isn’t painfully florid, only thematically rough. Lenox’ vocals remain slightly flat and definitely tentative throughout, which can drag down these flights of fancy, and his outsize vision results in unnecessary codas like the guitar-hero workout on the opening “Dawn,” the aimless picking that wraps up the 14-minute “As Were The Stars Above,” and the end of “Meridian Part Two,” which is essentially a minute of rainstorm sounds. (The muscular, Floydian wrap-up on “Arms Away” works well, however, which may mean that Lenox only needs to toughen up his arrangements along with his voice.)

It may seem like nitpicking, sure, but Lenox is obviously dreaming big, and right now he’s only nailing the smaller-scale stuff like the utterly charming folk ballad “Epitaph Of Five” or the little nuances, like working Steve Cropper licks into the intro of “Arms Away.” It’s not wretched excess, but it’s blurring his focus all the same. When you’re searching for the lost link between Joe Satriani and the Cure’s Disintegration, why include nearly verbatim remakes of the Chantays’ “Pipeline” and the Ramones’ “I Wanna Live”? Yes, good taste is timeless. But, as Meridian proves, it’s not quite everything.