The adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has been invoked by enough music critics to qualify it as a genuine critical cliché, though exactly how it’s meant to be understood remains somewhat ambiguous. Sometimes it’s a badge of honor stuck to an artist’s lapel, as if to suggest that their music is so seamless, why would anyone meddle with it? Sometimes — perhaps even simultaneously — it’s a pejorative, an indication of nothing so much as out and out stubbornness.

I think it’s fair to employ both meanings with regard to the glorious throwback soul of Sharon Jones — though God knows she, above all people, has earned the right to be a little stubborn. Jones’ sound is one that hasn’t been particularly fashionable in nigh on 40 years, and she herself has been working on bringing it back into vogue for several decades, only finding the recognition she deserves in recent years, particularly with the volatile chemistry found between Jones, her Daptone label home, and her mighty Dap Kings horn troupe; their breakthrough was 2007’s 100 Days, 100 Nights, and now comes I Learned the Hard Way, a well-earned victory lap.

But if Jones has every reason to feel triumphant, her new album sounds less like the work of a reigning champ than it does the confessions of a survivor; ifs very title suggests a kind of weariness and wisdom that comes form many years of struggle. So be it. That’s the very thing that’s informed so much classic soul and R&B, music that has always endured, in spite of changing fashions and fickle trends. This is the good stuff, the golden-age soul music that Jones has returned to again and again, and she draws on all the colors of the vintage rainbow—everyone from Green to Brown.

So yeah, it’s more of the same, but nobody in 2010 does this kind of stuff better. There are zero concessions to modernity here, no Amy Winehouse-style modernization or retro-fetishizing. There’s just a supple singer, a dynamite brass section, and a set of sturdy, mid-tempo soul songs that split the difference between swaying Motown and brassy Stax. The songs are about love, but they’re also about falling down and getting up again, about learning from the past and facing a new future. Jones is basically remaking the same album she made last time; as far as I’m concerned, she can make it a few more time before it even starts to get old.