Over two months after “pan’s odyssey (act 1),” Stevie Howie released a second act Friday with five new songs titled “the lonely chapter (act 2).” This new album both connects to and contrasts from act one.

The first act was driven by desire, while the second act takes the album title to heart with an edgy, somber loneliness powering the tone and melody throughout the songs. Even with this portrayed loneliness, there is a resemblance to desire: a desire not to be alone. As Howie sings in “miscreant,” “I’m missing what I had / But you know I never listen so I dropped the ball gag.”

His repeated use of the word “were” throughout the song suggests that something was once there and is now long gone, and he is now facing the consequences.

Before “miscreant,” Howie starts off the album with “panic,” a more edgy than somber piece that sets the tone of loneliness, or this inevitability of future loneliness as an outcome of having desire for someone. He sings, “It’s all mine, but at times I wonder / I get scared and panic.”

Tying this song back to Greek mythology, it has been said that the Greek god Pan comes from the word “panic.”

The album grows more somber in “1106” and continues that way until the last song, “set me free,” where the reign of loneliness takes a deeper hold in the lyrics and overall tone. Howie sings in “1106,” “You were the love I loved to try to fix / Don’t want to know how many signs we missed / Before we knew that you and I don’t mix.”

In “skyn,” he continues this realization of these possible “signs” as he sings, “You put a hole in my heart again” and “Why’d you open your heart to him.” There is a pretense of losing someone to somebody else, and he just wants to be set free from the lonely feeling of that loss and start again as Howie sings throughout the last two songs.

The shift from desire to loneliness shows the limitless choices being made from “pan’s odyssey (act 1)” to “the lonely chapter (act 2),” and each song continues to excel in upholding that feeling and overall message.