ALBUM REVIEW

When Alison Krauss sings about happiness on her new album, it’s to warn that you can’t always trust it. To the record’s loveliest melody line, she sings, “And the tears fall like rain/Deeper than crying, the loving still remains.” She turns over some songs to the men in her band, who offer stoic expressions of desperation.

Krauss clearly has the gift for making sorrow sound beautiful, and her approach hasn’t changed much on her first album of new material since 1992. Acoustic settings frame her glass-pure vocals with such restraint that even when she cuts loose she sounds contained. On a few songs she creates a chamber-music aura with some viola arrangements.

It’s all done with such integrity and impeccable taste that you might find yourself feeling guilty for thinking that it’s a little solemn and one-dimensional. Krauss and Union Station’s immersion in themes of dread and torment is true to the deep roots of their bluegrass music, but even their most austere forebears knew there was a time to crank it up and chase away the demons.

*

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).