It almost seems pointless to start a review by saying an album by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings is brilliant. It's a bit like saying fire is hot and water is wet. But on Welch's first album since 2003's Soul Journey, she leaves us no choice. As you would expect from an album with Welch's name on it, The Harrow and the Harvest is spare, haunting, and infinitely beautiful.
After such a long hiatus, broken up only by one album with Rawlings at the helm, Friend of a Friend in 2009, you would worry that the world weary vocals and piercing lyrics of "Annabelle" or "Revelator" might be lost to Welch and Rawlings. But from the first notes of The Harrow and the Harvest's opening song, "Scarlet Town", you have nothing to fear.
Welch and Rawlings could have very easily hopped off a time machine from 2003, picked up their instruments and gone to work. Their seamless blend of Appalachian Folk, minimalist Americana, and "Knoxville Girl" style Bluegrass gives us ten brand new songs that sound like unearthed Folk classics from the turn of the 20th Century.
As always, Rawlings' underrated guitar work shines here, seamlessly weaving with Welch's time worn voice and his own reedy background vocals. Nowhere is Rawlings' brilliance more on display than "That's the Way That It Goes", one of the album's more uptempo songs.
Since Gillian Welch and David Rawlings last graced us with an album of new music, groups like Old Crow Medicine Show, Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Mumford & Sons have pushed Folk Revivalist music to the fore. While The Harrow and the Harvest is a line drive to Welch's hardcore fanbase, it will be interesting to see how it is received by the younger Folk Revivalist generation raised on the youngsters mentioned before. This is Ali coming out of retirement, Babe Ruth taking another at-bat, Dan Marino throwing one more touchdown. In short, it's the Queen coming back to claim her throne from the courtesans who have ridden her sturdy coattails to fame.
The Harrow and the Harvest by Gillian Welch will be released worldwide on 6/28.
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