Week 5: Time (The Revelator)

14. GILLIAN WELCH - Time (The Revelator)
Acony, 2001

Up to this point, Gillian Welch was primarily known for her debut, Revival, an able exercise in traditional bluegrass ably produced by T-Bone Burnett - it was good, see, but a little too safe, a little underwhelming in its steadfast adherence to what it thought it should be. A second LP, Hell Among the Yearlings, followed in similar fashion, but it wasn't until 2001 when Welch would solidify her position as a true innovator with Time (The Revelator). Shimmering and expansive yet quiet and introverted, this is the type of record you might listen to ten times before you can even begin to be able to really take it all in. The opening track, "Revelator," is six-and-a-half minutes long and feels every bit of it. Not, y'see, because it drags, but because it is lithe and slow to reveal itself; beautifully paced, the guitars curl over one another sensually while Welch and longtime musical partner David Rawlings' notoriously, impossibly perfect harmonies melt like butter into 'blivion. "My First Lover" cannily tells the tale of a troubled, sepia-toned teenage relationship ("I do not remember any fights or fits/ Just a shaky morning after callin' it quits"), while the dexterous harmonies and major-sevenths of "Dear Someone" conjure up images of some empty Oahu beach at dusk. True to its name, Time (The Revelator) is infinitely concerned with the passage of time and especially the curse of the past. The tragic, untimely deaths of both Elvis Presley and Abraham Lincoln are chronicled here in song; the former more directly in "Elvis Presley Blues," the latter in the two-part saga "April the 14th Part I" and "Ruination Day Part II." Elsewhere, Welch laments the crushing uncertainty of the future in songs like "Everything is Free," a moving (and, one gathers, autobiographical) ode to the poor working musician, and in the beautiful, slow-burning closer, "I Dream a Highway," where the trials and errors of all time - past, present and future - are compressed into one gentle but harrowing 15-minute song. It's a perfect ending to a fine record, one which seems more familiar, yet somehow more frightening, with each rewarding listen.

WATCH: Gillian Welch - "Revelator" video