Jay Farrar has a voice fit for these tumultuous times. Big, sonorous, resonant, righteous, his voice carries such conviction that it is easy to fall into his embrace. His band Son Volt, steeped in primal blues rhythms, snarling guitar riffs and washes of bereft pedal steel, serve both his voice and his edgy songs on this by times haunting and haunted album.
Although this is Son Volt's ninth album since Farrar left Uncle Tupelo after falling out with his bandmate Jeff Tweedy in the mid-1990s, there is no weariness or coasting. Farrar traces these 10 songs to the country blues of Mississippi Fred McDowell and Skip James, along with Nick Drake's more pastoral charms – and these strains are loud and clear – but the key influence is America today and the spectre of dark times: "We will be damaged, there'll be hell to pay/ Light after darkness that is the way" (Promise the World).
