This 12-track song-cycle is a crossroads where haunting meets joyful; a voice from the heavens singing stories of the underworld. Holland's songs rise and fall like heavy eyelids and convey the peace between asleep and awake, creating a special place for you to be. Sounds from past and present-tense waltz together to a never ending melody that flickers between folk, jazz, blues, and pop. Holland's lyrics conjure characters and situations one might find in the surrealistic celluloid of Jim Jarmusch. As with all good dreams, there is an anything-goes spirit leading the way. Its this level of bravado that prompted All Music Guide to describe Holland's sound as "a listening experience that is singular, startling, and soulful.The test of an artist's true bearing is often found in their second album, the notion being that there's been a lifetime leading up to the debut, and then just a year or two for its successor. Jolie Holland has risen to the occasion with aplomb. Writing specifically for this release as well as for a band for the first time, there's a resonant bearing to the set as a whole. A dreamy quality pervades the set. As the instrumentation subtly varies from track to track, it further underscores the changing settings of a mind running wild while the body sleeps. Holland also addresses the idea overtly on the song "Nothing Left to Do But Dream." The gentle narrative offers surprises, such as the jarring, "I took my sister to the river and I came back alone." Small combo arrangements throughout serve to empower the lyrics--cliché-free and full of emotional breadth. --David Greenberger
