Album: Sara Watkins
Artist: Sara Watkins
Label: Nonesuch Records
Sounds like: Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Julie Miller

If country is the new rock—and there is plenty of evidence to suggest this might be the case (especially with rock music becoming so commercialised), bluegrass might be the new metal. Like metal, it has the requisite intensity and distinctive style to polarise listeners.

If bluegrass is the new metal—and here we’re really stretching the comparison to breaking point—the kind of bluegrass-lite, popularised by pretty young women (like Alison Krauss and now Sara Watkins) rather than old guys in ten gallon hats might be the new glam metal. Baby-faced Watkins plays fiddle in Nickel Creek, one of the new breed of bluegrass bands like Dixie Chicks and, er, all those other ones. Anyway, this is a fine debut from Watkins, mixing gorgeous and slow folky ballads like Over the Rhine’s work with more hoe-down numbers, and traditionals such as the gospel “Give me Jesus” with her own songs. “My friend” is a beautiful example of the latter, a prayer for a friend—“bring hope to his heart, relief to his mind.” The album is produced by John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin, a band particularly enamored by traditional Americana.

Of course, the natural comparison is the album from Zeppelin bandmate Robert Plant and bluegrass queen Alison Krauss, Raising Sand, which is the best recent example of this crossover music. While Watkins’ voice is not as distinctly angelic as Krauss’s—more girly cute like Leigh Nash but with a Kasey Chambers twang—her diverse but accessible album rocks, in a bluegrass kind of way.

Nick's Rating: 4/5