Joanna Newsom: Have One on Me
Label: Drag City
After 2006’s astonishing concept album Ys, there was some question of how Joanna Newsom could ever gracefully follow it up. But the girl is nothing if not fearless, and rather than easing meekly back into standard folk releases, she’s offered up this 18-song triple album (!) of lushly arranged, suitably protracted new songs. The material here shows much of the all-verse-no-chorus structural adventurousness of Ys and its companion Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP, but its ambitions do not seem quite so grave and consuming. That isn’t to diminish this absolute feast of an album: Its songs have all the vivid, eloquent storytelling, lilting melody, and heartbreaking vulnerability that her fans have come to expect, revere, and celebrate. (Abby)
