With pursed red lips and near-translucent skin, 18-year-old Sarah Jarosz could be Gillian Welch's long-lost daughter. On her impressive debut, this latest contemporary- bluegrass prodigy plucks a claw-hammer banjo alongside dobro king Jerry Douglas on the Appalachian-like instrumental "Fischer Store Road" and sings of a Virgin Mary stuck outside of time in the powerful title track. If the disc drags in places, Jarosz makes up for it with a pair of smart covers: Tom Waits' "Come On Up to the House" and a take on the murder ballad "Shankill Butchers" that betters the Decemberists' original. 

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MARK KEMP

(Posted: Jun 15, 2009)