Co-producer Bo Ramsey, who has worked with Pieta Brown's father Greg and more famously with Lucinda Williams, returns for the fourth time to help mold Pieta's sultry and poetic folk-rock. Fans of Williams will find plenty to like here, even if Brown's vocals do lean towards the less gritty, more bittersweet end of the spectrum. The singer/songwriter/guitarist was raised in the Midwest and South and her music is a logical combination of the burnished roots-rock and languid swamp groove associated with those regions. The introspective, somewhat obtuse lyrics often concern leaving small towns and the people who populate them as the music follows suit. It rolls and surges with a deliberate, insistent rhythm that occasionally breaks out in train-styled momentum on the propulsive "Sonic Boom."  In "West Monroe," Brown's somber yet heated treatise on parting the titular town, slow-burn guitar and her smoky, purring voice merge to yield the disc's most dramatic five minutes. "Are You Free?" works similar musical territory as its deliberate lope progresses like the sizzling fuse on a stick of dynamite. Hints of the Cowboy Junkies, Sheryl Crow, and Rickie Lee Jones coalesce to make this Brown's finest and most assured release. The album invites multiple spins to savor the lyrical and musical intricacies of a young artist with vision, intensity, and the talent to combine them into compelling music.--Hal Horowitz