Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue (Rough Trade) ****

12:02pm Friday 26th September 2008

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Following the wonderful Rabbit Fur Coat album, Jenny Lewis continues her exploration of dusty Americana with this dirt road trip of an album whose songs sound like they've been honed to near perfection on a whiskey-sloshed whet stone.

The carnal crawl of opening track Black Sand is matched by the confessional airs on Pretty Bird and the album's title track centrepiece; while Elvis Costello channels his late-'70s peak to duet on the pub rockin' Carpet-baggers and Black Crowes' Chris Robinson spreads his rootsiest guitar licks liberally.

In spite of the needlessly epic The Next Messiah, Acid Tongie remains mercifully free of the digital wizardry that infects so many new releases, finding plenty of room to roam in the overlapping edges of gospel, folk and southern-fried rock n' roll.