Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson / “Rattlin’ Bones”

Kasey Chambers released “The Captain”, her impressive solo debut album, in America in 2000 to critical acclaim. She followed it with the equally well received “Barricades and Brickwalls” and “Wayward Angel”. Unfortunately her fourth disc, the AOR (album oriented rock) “Carnival", including a misguided stab at a dance track, sounded like an artist struggling for mainstream chart success. "Rattlin' Bones”, the debut duet disc from the Australian wife and husband team of Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson, finds Kasey back in fine form with fourteen original tracks that compare favorably to the best of Buddy and Julie Miller’s Americana Country and the American Primitive of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. “Sweetest Waste of Time” sounded like it might be a long lost Everly Brothers track until I checked the credits and saw that they wrote that one too! The fiddle, banjo, dobro, mandolin, and lap steel when combined with great singing and songwriting make “Rattlin’ Bones” one of, if not the best, “alt country” country album you’ll hear this year.

Highly recommended, but you don't have to take my word about it. Here's a video of "Rattlin' Bones".