Like Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Ben Lee has grown up before our ears. He first came to the attention of alternative-music luminaries Sonic Youth and the Beastie Boys with his band Noise Addict at age 14 in 1993. In the intervening years, we’ve heard songs of awkward first love and Evan Dando hero worship. We’ve seen his songwriting and popularity grow. We’ve watched him date, and get dumped by, Claire Danes.

At 26 Lee now has entered what might be termed his post-heartbreak mysticism phase. The gnomic title for his new album, “Awake is the New Sleep,” is spelled out in flowers on the cover. Everything suggests it is the product of an intensive spiritual quest. Lee has visited India, listened to Hindu chant, read Sufi poet Rumi, and watched “I Heart Huckabees” several times.

In the press materials for the album, Lee takes a shot at the dream-catchers-and-healing-crystals crowd, but comes off sounding like a guru’s star pupil himself: “Music is my path to waking up,” he writes. “What am I waking up from? Was I really asleep? For how long? And what am I meant to do now?” It’s all a little too red pill / blue pill, and would be easy enough to dismiss if he didn’t also write perfectly crafted pop songs.

Instead of the house-y, Dan the Automator beats of his last album, picked acoustic guitar, plinked piano, and atmospheric washes predominate here. It’s a safe bet that sooner or later most of the album will find its way into the soundtrack of “The O.C.” But the brightest moment is the unabashed power pop of “Catch My Disease,” the lead single. It begins with hand-claps, floating Wurlitzer, and playful glockenspiel, then culminates in an infectious sing-along chorus: “so please, baby please / come on and catch my disease.”

The disease Lee is so eager to spread is a particularly virulent strain of sunny disposition it is. The lyrics cast him as a kind of anti-Oberst: instead of cynicism, unfeeling sex, and self-protection, Lee lays himself bare and wears his heart – along with all his other vital organs – on his sleeve. He wants “to open up and give and give and give.” The unrelenting positivity quickly grates and even arouses suspicion. It begins to sound like embitterment masquerading as overbearing optimism. He’s a little too enlightened, emotionally balanced, and forgiving to be credible.

On “Gamble Everything for Love,” Lee gives the poor advice of someone who has taken his money off the table or lost it all on the previous hand: “If you gamble everything for love you’re gonna be alright,” he sings over lilting country-and-ska music. “Apple Candy” is similarly naive, imagining a love triangle with no sharp edges. “I want to know what he knows / I want to feel what he felt / I want to go where he’s been / I want you and I want him,” sings Lee, with a creepy lack of jealousy.

This failing caused me to go back and listen to Lee’s recent work, particularly his contributions to Evan Dando’s 2003 comeback album “Baby I’m Bored.” “Hard Drive” and “All My Life,” the two songs written solely by Lee, are far more emotionally balanced and nuanced than anything found on “Awake is the New Sleep.””To be filled with hatred / for the time I’ve wasted / and I’m so impatient / for a new sensation” writes Lee on behalf of Dando, “all my life I thought I need all the things I didn’t need at all.”

Lee began his career imagining what is like to be Evan Dando, and he still is better at doing that than at analyzing himself. Perhaps with time he’ll be able to find the same frailty, complexity, and regret in his own life.

Ben Lee plays Tonic February 24 at 8 pm. (107 Norfolk Street, between Delancey and Rivington Streets, 212-358-7501).

What to See This Week

Benefits for Tonic All week That a venue catering to avant jazz, noise rock, and freak folk should be financially distressed is no surprise, but Tonic has had an especially bad run of late. Due to skyrocketing rent and insurance costs, a robbery, and the recent collapse of a sewer line, the club faces eviction if it cannot raise $100,000 in the next few weeks. Stars have come out of the woodwork to help it do so, staging a series of benefit concerts. Highlights include sometimes-Wilco member Jim O’Rourke tomorrow night at 8 p.m. and Sean Lennon and Vincent Gallo Thursday at 10:30 p.m. (107 Norfolk Street, between Delancey and Rivington Streets, 866-468-7619).

Animal Collective With Storsveit Nix Noltes and First Nation Bowery Ballroom, February 25 at 8:30 p.m It takes some doing to be considered the most outré act in the psychedelic folk scene, but Animal Collective works hard at it and deserves the title. For all the praise heaped on last year’s “Sung Tongs” album, the group is really best experienced live, proving the old maxim that a rattletrap lofi jam session is made more interesting when the musicians wear plushie suits. (6 Delancey Street, between Bowery and Chrystie Streets, 212-533-2111).