it's not that it's actually "meh" it's just that the first two or three songs are so excellent that it makes the rest of the album seem worse than it really is, besides a few standout tracks later on like, as tommy said, "john prine"
it's like eating cheesecake and then grilled cheese (substitute your owns tastes here, i guess). grilled cheese isn't bad per se, but next to cheesecake it's like "who cares?"