Easy records get old quickly.

If a new CD is immediately familiar, it may well be that, a few months down the road, the CD in question will be occupying a permanent, alphabetized slot on an unwieldy rack of multi-media peripherals at which you will glare with ever-increasing contempt as your lease nears its end and you try to ignore the necessity of a trip in the moving van devoted solely to a heap of unwanted, artless tripe.

Cat Power’s You Are Free will not meet such a fate.

Like all five of her previous releases — from the semi-redundant, recorded-in-one-session jams of Dear Sir and Myra Lee, through the deliberate, brilliant What Would the Community Think? and Moon Pix, to the maddeningly quiet and beautiful Covers Record — You Are Free is an unexpected puzzle. It has elements of all of Chan Marshall’s prior work, assembled in an almost arbitrary order.

But it is not arbitrary. It simply doesn’t feel like other records, hers or anyone else’s.

Yet, conveniently enough, the only approximate blueprint of how You Are Free must be approached can be derived from the last album of (mostly) original Cat Power songs.

Moon Pix epitomized how good a “challenging” record could be. Anyone buying the CD expecting a whole album of Cross Bones Style pop songs would surely end up scratching bewildered holes in his or her scalp before finally understanding the beauty of the record.

Within Cat Power’s subdued context, You Are Free changes tone so often as to leave the listener disoriented. It seems, at first, to go on a little too long; at 14 songs and over 50 minutes, it is too much to absorb in one sitting.

At various points after the rock’n’roll highlights of “He War” and “Shaking Paper” — the seventh and eighth tracks — the album seems ready to end. It becomes frustrating, particularly when the listener reaches track 11, “Names,” a depressing roll call of children meeting miserable fates.

The song features a bare, reverb-soaked piano accompanying Chan’s vocals. As the CD’s longest track, and falling as it does in a climactic position, it begs comparison to Moon Pix‘s more inspired “Colors and the Kids.”

But in spite of this one weak spot, there is plenty of varied and original material.

Her rendition of Michael Hurley’s “Werewolf” and her own “Good Woman” were regulars on her solo “Covers” tour, but here they are tarted up with strings and additional guitars and vocals which do not hurt the songs, but might make one long for stripped-down, Chan-and-her-guitar versions.

“Good Woman” and the closing track, “Evolution,” feature guest vocals by Eddie Vedder. Fellow Seattle transplant Dave Grohl adds instrumental help on three songs, including the two aforementioned rockers.

For some, the presence of two big names may provide impetus to give “You Are Free” a listen. If so, fine. But it is the voice and simple guitar and piano of Chan Marshall that is the central appeal.

Her bizarre but sincere persona is the stuff of legend. Her early days as an uncomfortable celebrity and nervous performer may have given way, slightly, to a more mature artist.

Her inner conflict — an intensely private person in a very public line of work — manifests itself in different ways throughout her previous work. With “You Are Free,” Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, manages to sum up all that has come before, as if coming to terms with the trials that brought her the respect she now enjoys.

Regardless of what comes next, You Are Free provides a rare, needed example of someone making music that will be interesting beyond next week. The length and variety that make the CD dense and difficult at first are also the elements that will ensure listenability for the long haul.

When other artists and albums have gotten old, Cat Power and You Are Free will still offer challenges and surprises.