was over 30 years of age when she recorded her first solo album in 2006, and it's not hard to hear that when you listen to her work -- there's a welcome maturity and a sense of emotional experience in 's music that rings clear in her voice and her simple but rock-solid melodies, and on her third release, 2012's , she strikes a lovely balance between the resonance of classic country and folk and the more outgoing approach of contemporary roots music. Six years may have separated 's Sub Pop debut and this follow up, but this music never sounds like it was worried over for too long -- if the songs and recordings were clearly crafted with care, they also sound spontaneous and organic, and 's vocals seem as natural as conversation but with a silky, richly textured beauty that's subtly enchanting. Engineer (who co-produced the sessions with ) gives the material a warm, honest sound that's spacious and intimate at once, with the individual instruments giving one another plenty of room while cohering into a whole that's surprisingly powerful, and 's pedal steel guitar and the simple but evocative string charts on several numbers do wonders to make this music tug at the heartstrings. The music on is powerfully emotional, but never seems to be playing for cheap sentimentality or aiming for easy targets; these songs deal with the ache and longing of love and the difficult protocols of the human heart, and 's sketches speak with an honesty and realism that make them all the more incisive. is a work of modest genius that, like falling in love, manages to be simple and richly complex at the same time. ~ Mark Deming