Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – Woodland – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Fans of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings will be celebrating their return, for their first album of original material in 13 years.  Thankfully little has changed in their world, they operate with a sound of austere, sparse, folk with a touch of bluegrass.  A song like Empty Trainload of Sky seems like something you might have heard before from them, but the quality of the playing stands out.  Their harmonies meld together perfectly.  There’s not a note overplayed on this largely acoustic strum, the merest hint of steel guitar, nothing more.

What We Had has a gloriously lazy melody, sounds like a timeless Neil Young 70’s classic from Harvest or Comes a Time and features both Welch and Rawlings singing.  Lawman follows with the most intricate guitar playing before The Bells and the Birds.  This latter track sets one hell of a mood, an uneasy, spooked-out feeling with Welch singing over understated guitar and an occasional harmony from Rawlings.  These harmonies are put to great effect on the bright, countrified strummer North Country.

Rawlings gets his turn in the spotlight on Hashtag, a soft, rootsy ballad featuring some gorgeous strings.  The pair move through the songs on the album with the minimum of fuss, each song is shorn of frills or ornate instrumentation.  Here Stands A Woman has a lonesome drift to it, before the album finishes with the sparse banjo tune Howdy Howdy.

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are that rare pair, operating in the country/Americana genre but completely free from cheesiness.  They don’t release new material very often, but when they do it is something to savour.

Empty Trainload of Sky