Sugarhill
2008
Rattlin' Bones
About This Album
As we all learned from watching There Will Be Blood, ambition can be a good thing and a bad thing. On her fourth solo album, Carnival, Kasey Chambers seemed determined to move past the country influences that dominated her earlier work, and while she proved more than worthy to the task, the album also upped the creative ante in a way that raised unspoken questions about what Chambers would or could do for an encore. So the surprise is that for album number five, Chambers has seemingly taken a step back -- Rattlin' Bones is a spare, primarily acoustic set she wrote and recorded in collaboration with former Pretty Violet Stain vocalist Shane Nicholson (who also happens to be Chambers' husband). With its concise arrangements and Appalachian accents, Rattlin' Bones plays like an effort to reclaim some of the country feeling she gave up on Carnival and return to more familiar surroundings, except for one little thing -- this is as good and as compelling an album as Kasey Chambers has ever made. The good news is that Chambers and Nicholson are as fine a match in the recording studio as they presumably are at home, and his high lonesome tenor blends beautifully with the emotionally charged nooks and crannies of her one-of-a-kind voice.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,5 and 7)

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