After looking at the cover of
Gillian Welch's debut album,
Revival, and listening to the first two cuts,
"Orphan Girl" and
"Annabelle," you'd be tempted to imagine that
Welch somehow stumbled into a time machine after cutting some tunes at the 1927 Bristol, TN, sessions and was transported to a recording studio in Los Angeles in 1996, where
T-Bone Burnett was on hand and had the presence of mind to roll tape. It takes a closer listen to
Revival to realize that
Welch and her partner,
David Rawlings, are not mere revivalists in the
old-timey style;
Welch's debts to artists of the past are obvious and clearly acknowledged, but there's a maturity, intelligence, and keen eye for detail in
Welch's songs you wouldn't expect from someone simply trying to ape
the Carter Family. What's more, the subtle,
blues-shot menace of
"Pass You By" and
"Tear My Stillhouse Down" and the jazzy undertow of
"Paper Wings" point to the breadth and depth of
Welch's musical vision, which encompasses a spectrum broader than the rural musics of the 1920s and '30s. If
Welch and
Rawlings often reach to sounds and styles of the past on
Revival, they do so with an unaffected sincerity and natural grace, and the album's best moments (
"Orphan Girl," "One More Dollar," and
"Tear My Stillhouse Down") are the work of a gifted singer and songwriter who knows how to communicate the sounds of her heart and soul to others, and producer
Burnett gets those sounds on tape with unobtrusive skill. A superb debut. ~ Mark Deming
