Gillian Welch Hell Among the Yearlings

3 Stars (out of 5) - "...Welch sings with a world-weary resignation....(the) bare-bones instrumentation...settles softly on each track's surface, enabling her detached, narcotic voice to hover over the melodies. File next to Bruce Springsteen's NEBRASKA."
"...The anachro-misery might seem all too precious if Welch weren't just a brilliant mimic but nearly psychic; you'd swear she was channeling the unwritten greatest hits of the Stanley Brothers....each improbably catchy elegy has a saving specificity of character and emotion attached to the tribulation..." - Rating: A-
4 out of 5 stars - "A os Angeleno Pixies fan who sounds like some God-fearing 1920s Appalachian farmer's wife...graveyard voice...[and] skeletally-picked guitar..."
4 stars out of 5 -- "Here were Welch and Rawlings in pure mountain mode, their softly graceful harmonising complemented by brittle, almost tinny guitars that recalled Willie Nelson."
5 stars out of 5 - "...This is Welch in full, dark flower....A beautiful, literate record earthed somewhere between the dustbowl and the woodpile..."
4 stars out of 5 - "...Brilliant..."
"...the songs are natural objects, scarcely betraying that they were written at all; they sound as if they have always existed....This record is darker and starker than the first, but more solid and more natural; a wonderful work."