Normally, when I really get into bluegrass, it's when done with a female vocalist - I don't know why...guess that's just the way I'm wired. This record's an exception, though - a while back, I heard it playing in Sister Ray's and was interested enough to suss it out at that point, but it's only now that a copy of the album has fallen into my hands, whereupon lo, it's as good as I remembered.
The ensemble is led by Kelly on vocals, and elsewise made up of what is, I guess, the standard modern bluegrass instrumentation - most prominently, banjo and fiddle (the former usually accompanying the vox, pushing the music forward from beneath, the latter either commenting in the upper register or emerging as a separate melodic voice in its own right), shaded by mandolin, guitars (just acoustic, as far as I can hear) and double bass. Mostly comprised of Kelly originals (one cowrite with Archie Roach, another with one A. McGregor, plus a Louvin Brothers' song, "You're Learning", on which Kelly's joined by Kasey Chambers, returning the dueting favour after "I Still Pray"), it's a really quite wonderful contemporary gloss on that high lonesome sound. The songwriting is consistently good, the band knows exactly what it's doing and is technically very sound, Kelly's vocals provide a charismatic focal point (and the harmonies, when they come, are spot-on), and the overall sound hits precisely the right spot. Swinging easily from the declamatory, scene-setting opener "Stumbling Block" through numbers both yearning and rollicking (current favourites are "Rally Round The Drum", "Passed Over" and "Foggy Highway" itself), to penultimate quasi-waltz "Cities Of Texas" and slowed-down gospel/worksong-ish closer "Meet Me In The Middle Of The Air".
