Jeff Beck speaks through his guitar, and he only does so when he has something to say—the seven-year break between Emotion & Commotion and its predecessor, the electronica-minded Jeff, was one of several such extended breaks in a career that now stretches for more than four decades. What he has to say in 2010 may at first seem puzzling, but by album’s end reveals itself as characteristically sharp, fresh and unpredictable.

The selection of songs on the aptly namedEmotion & Commotion initially appears to represent a patchwork grab bag of Beck’s varying interests: a handful of originals, two numbers closely associated with (although not written by) the late Jeff Buckley, a movement from the score of the 2007 movie Atonement, a Puccini aria (“Nessun Dorma”) and a swooning take on “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” just for a start. Pop star Joss Stone, opera singer Olivia Safe and Beck protégé Imelda May each take at least one turn behind the microphone, adding still further variety.

Fear not. The gleaming production by Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson and the presence of a 64-piece orchestra on much of the album go a long way toward unifying these disparate sources of inspiration. But it’s still Beck’s keening, stinging guitar work—as unrelentingly bold as it was when he first made his name with the Yardbirds in the 1960s—that truly makes these diverse tracks play like logically unfolding chapters in the same compelling tale. – Chris Neal