Bill Callahan fans had to wait six years for Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, an album filled with revealing, gorgeously written songs that more than rewarded listeners' patience. Just over a year later, he returned with Gold Record, a set of songs whose title reflects their quality, if perhaps not their commercial prospects. While on tour for Shepherd, Callahan continued that album's creative momentum, finishing up some old songs and writing some new ones along the way. Recorded within a week and with several songs wrapped in one take, Gold Record could almost pass for a live album in its relaxed spontaneity. Callahan gives his audience plenty of space and time to appreciate his songcraft and conversational flow, and while these songs are character sketches instead of Shepherd's deeply personal, intertwining meditations, the lightness and intimacy of that album lingers. As on that record, the brilliant observational skills he's had since the Smog days are turned towards people instead of away from them. On "Pigeons," a chauffeur tells a couple en route to their honeymoon, "When you are dating, you only see each other/And the rest of us can go to hell/But when you are married, you are married to the whole wide world/The rich, the poor, the sick and the well." He also lets his sense of humor come to the surface more than he has in some time, whether he's name-dropping Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen as a wink to the critics who invariably compare him to those legends or delivering a lighthearted tribute to "Ry Cooder." However, his wit never detracts from more poignant moments like "The Mackenzies," which finds a man standing in for the dead son of his neighbors. Gold Record is also a graceful extension of Callahan's larger body of work under his own name. Joined by Shepherd guitarist Matt Kinsey and bassist Jaime Zuverza, he continues to evoke the history of country and folk in ways that suit his own style perfectly. While the focus is always rightfully on his voice and guitar, the pedal steel, strings, brass, and woodwinds that wind through the album embellish his songcraft in ways that feel more timeless than self-consciously nostalgic. When he revisits "Let's Move to the Country," the opening track from Smog's 1999 album Knock Knock, it's burnished by layers of wisdom and experience that accept the past as a part of the present and future, or as Callahan puts it at one point, "It's all one river." Equally rich and effortless, Gold Record is especially satisfying for longtime fans as part of a bounty of great work from Callahan since his return, but there's plenty here to delight anyone who loves brilliant songwriting and down-to-earth performances. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi

1		Pigeons
2		Another Song
3		35
4		Protest Song
5		The Mackenzies
6		Let's Move to the Country
7		Breakfast
8		Cowboy
9		Ry Cooder
10		As I Wander