Soul Journey (Vinyl)

Personnel: Gillian Welch (vocals, guitar); David Rawlings (various instruments, background vocals); Mark Ambrose (acoustic guitar); Greg Leisz (dobro); Ketcham Secor (fiddle); Matt Andrews, Jim Boquist (bass). SOUL JOURNEY, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2001 outing TIME (THE REVELATOR), finds Gillian Welch and creative partner David Rawlings getting creatively looser and enlisting the aid of a back-up band. The decision to flesh out the sound beyond the duo format (as had been the case on the past couple of albums), ends up being a successful one. The result is a blend of traditional songs such as "Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor" with self-penned cuts like the haunting "One Monkey" and the cantering "Lowlands." The languid aura infusing most of these 10 songs gets blown away with "Wrecking Ball," a meaty-sounding original tune that not only borrows its title from a Neil Young song, but offers a combination of gnarly guitar and sonic build-up that seems like a hat-tip to Crazy Horse.

• Format: Vinyl
• Genre: Pop