The Black Crowes have never been a band that needed long runways to find their sound. They came in hot from the start, playing the kind of lived-in Southern rock that sounded like it had already been through a few hard winters. What is surprising about A Pound of Feathers, their new record, is how much it sounds like a band that has stopped trying to prove anything, and what that freedom does for them.

Recorded in just over a week, the album does not hide its speed. There is a looseness here that the Crowes have sometimes chased and sometimes talked themselves out of. On A Pound of Feathers, they chase it and catch it. Chris Robinson’s voice, still one of the more distinctive instruments in American rock, sounds less like he is performing and more like he is just in the room with you. Rich Robinson’s guitar work is exactly what you want from him: spacious, confident, not trying to fill every silence.

“Southern Blood” opens things up with an almost casual authority, a groove that settles in before the melody even announces itself. “Two Moons Down” is the kind of track that would have sounded good on a jukebox in 1975 and sounds just as good now. There is no nostalgia baked into it, just a song that understands what makes rock music feel physical.

The album does thin out slightly in its middle section, a couple of tracks that coast on the band’s chemistry without adding much to the record’s overall argument. That is a minor complaint. The back half recovers well, and by the time “Featherweight” closes things out, the record has made its case.

The case is this: the Black Crowes, when they stop second-guessing themselves and just play, are still one of the better American rock bands doing it. A Pound of Feathers is not a comeback record or a nostalgia record. It is a band finding out what they sound like when they trust each other in a room. The answer turns out to be pretty good.