Notes of Blue [LP]

In the grand tradition of , , and is a guy who has essentially been making the same record over and over again throughout his career. That's not a bad thing; all of those artists have made plenty of great, powerful records that reflected a distinctive style that was theirs and theirs alone. Ever since 's , where the divide between and 's writing styles became especially clear, 's music has been dominated by his deep, thoughtful vocals, his strong, elemental melodies, and his bursts of -style roughhouse guitar. Twenty-five years on, hasn't abandoned that formula, and while he puts a somewhat different spin on his songwriting on 2017's , recorded with the latest edition of his band , it's entirely obvious that this is 's work less than 30 seconds into the first track, "Promise the World." 's lineup has been fluid since resurrected the band in 2005, but with at the helm their musical personality has remained stable. The title refers to his recent fascination with vintage rural blues that informed this batch of songs, but the lyrical fragments scavenged from ancient blues numbers and the bursts of slide guitar don't distract much from 's trademark roots rock attack. is still a commanding vocalist, his guitar work remains powerful and muscular, and this new edition of ( on bass, slide guitar, and piano, on fiddle, on pedal steel, and on drums) sounds taut and convincing. ~ Mark Deming