GILLIAN WELCH

The Harrow & The Harvest

[Acony]

It’s been eight years since the release of Gillian Welch and partner David Rawlings’ last album, Soul Journey, but the darkly written, starkly sung songs on The Harrow & The Harvest are entirely worth the wait. Welch and Rawlings are the only players on this all-acoustic set, their voices often harmonizing in mournful modal fourths and Rawlings’ guitar winding its way around Welch’s studiously unadorned rhythm. With their patented neo-Appalachian sound, the duo describes what Rawlings calls “10 different kinds of sad” from the elegantly beautiful “Dark Turn of Mind” to the jaunty yet elegiac ballad “The Way It Goes.” Rather than cast a pall over the proceedings, that sadness fleshes out and illuminates the characters in these songs. The Harrow & The Harvest is a deeply felt collection of Southern Gothic tales that dares you to inspect these characters up close, and makes you all the richer for having made the effort. —Bob Cannon

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