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Hell Among the Yearlings (Almo)
Gillian Welch appropriates traditional American song forms on her commanding sophomore release and comes up with something that can’t be pegged to any decade or style. Hints of old-timey banjo plucking that illuminates “Rock of Ages,” sorrowful blue notes shade “Good Til Now,” and a rockabilly twang that drives “Honey Now.” But where the woman always dies in a traditional murder ballad, the protagonist in “Caleb Meyer” first kills the man who attacks her, then banishes his ghost. Like her, Welch won’t take things lying down; she shapes her raw material to her distinctly modern ends.
