With I Am a Bird Now, Antony Hegarty made one of the most intensely personal records ever put to tape, capturing all of his struggles and pain; the long-term plight of a transsexual with a ghostly vibrato matched only by Nina Simone. Bird’s tales of transformation found a universal audience, which serves as a testament to Antony’s powers of finding universal connection through music.

With The Crying Light, Antony turns his focus outwards, writing on themes of nature and, in the process, casting a far wider net. Similar to Arcade Fire’s turn away from the small-scale fantasies of Funeral to the antiwar tirades of Neon Bible, The Crying Light’s new worldly concerns may initially hold the listener at arm’s length, but the album unveils its own set of near-equal revelations with repeated listens. Besides, given the layers pulled away through Bird, what else could Antony have revealed?

Opener “Her Eyes are Underneath the Ground” sets the stage in similar fashion to Bird’s “Hope There’s Someone,” although it’s nearly impossible to compete with that song’s opening salvo of “Hope there’s someone/ to take care of me/ when I die.” Gentle strings and piano back Antony’s wavering tale of stealing metaphorical flowers from his mother’s garden. “Epilepsy is Dancing” begs the listener to “Cut me in quadrants/ leave me in the corners,” over a deceptively shuffling ramble.

Unlike Bird, The Crying Light is free from high-profile collaborators (although one wonders what Lou Reed would have done with the soulful guitar on “Aeon”), and, for the most part, the arrangements are reined in to keep Antony firmly front and centre. The record’s sole marquee-name guest spot, neo-classical composer Nico Muhly, adds flourish, but given that The Crying Light’s most powerful moments are also its sparsest, Muhly’s contributions wouldn’t be missed.

The Crying Light’s front sleeve image of Japanese dance artist Kazuo Ohno in old age, staring up into an off-frame light, is as stark and loaded as the music within. But where I Am a Bird Now used an image of Candy Darling on her deathbed staring directly into the camera for its cover, here Ohno’s face is alive, looking upwards and beyond the confines of the frame. The same can be said of Antony himself within the album. While it’s not quite as revelatory as I Am a Bird Now, that’s a minor quibble in the face of an album so gorgeously arch and patiently moving as this.