“Careful what you say/ Careful who might hear,” goes the first line of Letting Go, the first new Jennifer Knapp album in some nine years. If only she’d heeded her own advice. Never mind the fact that this is the first new Knapp in close to a decade. What’s sure to get more play with the press is that it’s the first new Knapp album since she broke the news to Christianity Today that she — beloved of the evangelical community — was a lesbian. And what a shame: amidst all the fuss about her lifestyle, her faith, her sexuality… well, whatever happened to the music? So it goes. Letting Go is destined, probably forever, to be known for its backstory, the actual music going largely underappreciated.

Without question, no one will be able to hear “Fallen” without thinking about… well, you know. It might be the first love song Knapp has ever committed to tape, and it’s a pure and beautiful one — its faint piano undercurrent tastefully recalling Coldplay, its lyric too elegant and heartfelt to play as a tawdry confession of tabloid sideline—not that that’s gonna stop anyone from hearing it that way, of course.

And then there’s “Inside,” the nastiest, angriest rocker Knapp’s cut to date, and a song that’s been quoted in nearly every magazine article and blog entry about Knapp and her sexuality. It’s not hard to hear why: the song is righteously pissed off, and its anger is directed at a community of critics who seek to “bury [her] alive” before they “hear the whole story.” She penned the song well before she became the center of so much heated debate, so give her credit for prescience — or, at least, for knowing how these things tend to go over in a sensationalistic, gossip-crazed culture.

But the thing about that song is, there’s nothing particularly juicy, nothing especially scandalous about it. (Though I suspect its use of the word “hell” would ruffle the feathers of some Christian retailers, were they not, ah, otherwise engaged.) Knapp is, by her own reckoning, a private person who made a public statement about her sexuality simply because she values honesty, and believes her fans have the right to know who she is. But her interest does not seem to be in stirring the pot, or becoming a spokesperson for any particular lifestyle or belief system, or in sharing all the sordid details of her life with the general, record-buying public. She’s back, nine years after her last record, because this is what she does. She’s a musician, a record-maker, and this record is pleasantly devoid of anything that sounds even remotely seedy or opportunistic.

So because no one else is likely to pay it the respect of engagement on its own terms, let me just say it: Letting Go is a fine album, not just a welcome return for Knapp, but an album that stands proudly alongside her own work. The high gloss and fussy production of The Way I Am are, thankfully, gone; some of the acoustic, country-rock leanings of Lay it Down are here, but the record it most closely resembles might be Kansas. Its approach is, like that album, rock-oriented, but here Knapp is more confident as a singer and a songwriter, and her sound polished to just the right degree.

Indeed, Knapp’s latest is an album of immense integrity. It’s true to who she is as an artist, at various points recalling her past work but carving out an identity of its own, in no small part due to producer Paul Moak’s sure hand in turning throaty rockers like “Dive In” into glistening, radio-ready rockers; that song is polished but also lean and unfussy, Moak simply streamlining Knapp’s dynamite hook.  On the flipside is “Mr. Gray,” the most country-ish thing here, a winning acoustic shuffle to which Moak lends momentum and warmth.

Musically, the whole record is tremendous; Approachable but uncompromising, slick yet earthy, full of big hooks but never at the expense of the songwriter’s core intimacy. And what is she singing about? Well, what else? Love, God, and being an artist on the outside… the very things that her detractors are going to be harping on, as well. But you can think what you want about Knapp; her chorus of “Mr. Gray,” in which she confesses to being a sinner “in need of mercy,” is as much a banner lyric as anything I’ve quoted above, a perfect summation of an album that’s not garish or unseemly — simply humble and true.