Emily Barker's 2007 debut, Photos. Fires. Fables., was a very good album containing one song (the wistful ballad "This Is How It's Meant To Be") that hinted at greatness. It has taken remarkably little time for the Australian-born, UK-based roots/country singer to redeem that promise. Despite the Snow is an astonishing, flawless album, one that merits meaningful comparison with anything by Gillian Welch or Lucinda Williams.

Despite The Snow was recorded live in just four days in a converted barn in Norfolk, England (for that and other reasons, the Cowboy Junkies 'Trinity Sessions is another irresistible reference point). Barker's backing band, the Red Clay Halo, is an unusual combination of violin, cello, accordion and flute, which shrouds Barker's songs in grand, gloomy arrangements best thought of as the approximate sonic equivalent of a Victorian mausoleum (a compliment, obviously: and they're granted two short instrumental interludes, "If It's All Night Long" and "Serendipity," to demonstrate their chops).

At the heart of it all, Barker's intelligent, impassioned songs are carried by an extraordinary voice, as capable of the impassioned abandon of "Disappear" as it is of gentle, more-in-sorrow-than-anger remorse of the self-explanatory "Bloated, Blistered, Aching Heart."