I've only heard a sprinkling of pre-Sunrise songs, but it sounds like he had occasional great songs and got slowly better til that album, on which everything fell into place and his style really shone. Since then, his two most recent albums have been pretty good, but quite different, not as consistent, and far more mainstream-oriented.
@sneaky: Indeed it is. The Dylan cover is pretty good. I really love the Nick Cave cover though, actually.