| The Harrow & the Harvest | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | June 28, 2011 | |||
| Recorded | February 2011 [1] | |||
| Genre | Folk | |||
| Label | Acony | |||
| Producer | David Rawlings | |||
| Gillian Welch chronology | ||||
| ||||
The Harrow & the Harvest is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Gillian Welch. Released on 28 June 2011, it was Welch's first album in eight years and is her most recent album of original material. The album was nominated for Best Folk Album for the 54th Grammy Awards. [2]
The eight years since the release of 2003's Soul Journey marked the longest period of time between album releases for Welch. In explaining the relatively long recording absence, Welch said, "The sad truth is we never liked anything enough to put it out, which is not a pleasant place to be." She added, "over the course of that time that we were quiet we probably had enough songs to put out two or three records. Actually we made a few tentative steps at trying to record, but inevitably the heart would go out of it when we realised that we simply didn't like the material enough to go on with it." [3] Welch frequently performed the song "The Way It Will Be" in years prior to the release of the album. [4] Welch explains that this tense time period inspired the album title: "Our songcraft slipped and I really don't know why. It's not uncommon. It's something that happens to writers. It's the deepest frustration we have come through, hence the album title." [3] The writing process involved "this endless back and forth between the two of us," Welch said, stating that "It’s our most intertwined, co-authored, jointly-composed album." [5] John Dyer Baizley provided artwork for the album. [6]
According to Welch, "The songs are mostly first and second takes, and Dave composed some of the music spontaneously in the studio. It was very freeing. We learned to accept mistakes and rough edges, because those didn't impede what the heart of the matter was." [5]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 8.5/10 [7] |
| Metacritic | 85/100 [8] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |  [9] |
| The A.V. Club | C+ [10] |
| The Daily Telegraph | [11] |
| The Guardian |  [12] |
| The Independent | [13] |
| Los Angeles Times |  [14] |
| Mojo | [15] |
| The Observer | [16] |
| Rolling Stone | [17] |
| Uncut | [18] |
The Harrow & the Harvest was met with "universal acclaim" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 85 based on 28 reviews. [8] Aggregate website AnyDecentMusic? gave the release an 8.5 out of 10 based on a critical consensus of 27 reviews. [7]
Uncut placed it at 2 on their "Top 50 albums of 2011" list, [19] while Q , Mojo , and Paste placed it at number 28, 34, and 39, respectively. [20] [21] [22]
All tracks are written by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Scarlet Town" | 3:38 |
| 2. | "Dark Turn of Mind" | 4:07 |
| 3. | "The Way It Will Be" | 4:47 |
| 4. | "The Way It Goes" | 4:01 |
| 5. | "Tennessee" | 6:35 |
| 6. | "Down Along the Dixie Line" | 4:49 |
| 7. | "Six White Horses" | 3:38 |
| 8. | "Hard Times" | 4:52 |
| 9. | "Silver Dagger" | 3:23 |
| 10. | "The Way the Whole Thing Ends" | 6:11 |
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
|
Gillian Howard Welch is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, bluegrass, country and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms."
David Todd Rawlings is an American guitarist, singer, and record producer. He is known for his partnership with singer and songwriter Gillian Welch. He and Welch were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 91st Academy Awards for "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. In 2020, Welch and Rawlings released All the Good Times , which won the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.
Soul Journey is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Gillian Welch. It was released on June 9, 2003 by Acony Records. As with all of her previous releases, it is a collaboration with David Rawlings.
Accelerate is the fourteenth studio album by American alternative rock band R.E.M., released on March 31, 2008, in Europe, and on April 1 in North America. Produced with Jacknife Lee, Accelerate was intended as a departure from the 2004 album Around the Sun. R.E.M. previewed most of the album's tracks during a five-night residency at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, and recorded the album in a nine-week schedule.
Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire is the seventh studio album by American rock band Eels, released on June 2, 2009. Hombre Lobo is Spanish for "werewolf". On March 31, 2009, the band made the track "Fresh Blood" available on Spinner.com, explaining that the song would be the lead single for the album. A documentary entitled Tremendous Dynamite was filmed to document the recording of the album. The cover art is a tribute to the famous Cuban cigar brand Cohiba.
Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle is the second solo album by American musician Bill Callahan under his own name, released on April 14, 2009 via Drag City.
Gillian Welch is a singer-songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee. Welch plays with her music partner David Rawlings, whom she met while they were both students at The Berklee College of Music. The first two Gillian Welch albums were released through the label Almo Sounds. After Universal Music Group purchased Almo, Welch started her own label, Acony Records.
Mojo is the twelfth studio album by American rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released on June 15, 2010 on CD and June 29 on Blu-ray. It was Petty's first album with the Heartbreakers in eight years. Mojo debuted at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 125,000 copies in its first week of release. The album was also the band's first full album with bassist Ron Blair since 1981's Hard Promises, as he played on only two tracks on the previous Heartbreakers album, The Last DJ.
The King Is Dead is the sixth studio album by The Decemberists, released on Capitol Records on January 14, 2011. Described as the "most pastoral, rustic record they've ever made" by Douglas Wolk of Rolling Stone, the album reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart for the week ending February 5, 2011. The song "This Is Why We Fight" reached number 19 on the U.S Alternative Songs Chart, while the song "Down by the Water" also charted in the United States. In November 2011, the band released an EP of album out-takes, entitled Long Live the King.
Apocalypse is a studio album by Bill Callahan, released on April 5, 2011. It is the third studio album released under his own name, and fourteenth overall when including LPs released as Smog.
Bon Iver is the second studio album from American indie folk band Bon Iver, released on June 17, 2011. The album is composed of 10 songs and was seen as a new musical direction for the band.
Bad as Me is the seventeenth and most recent studio album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released on October 21, 2011, by Anti- Records. The album is known to have been recorded as early as February 2011 and was officially announced for release on August 23, 2011, on Waits' official web site and various social media networks. On the same day, the title track, "Bad as Me", was released as the album's first single on iTunes.
Music Complete is the tenth studio album by English band New Order. It was released on 25 September 2015 by Mute Records, their debut on the label. The album features guest vocals from Elly Jackson of La Roux, Iggy Pop, and Brandon Flowers of The Killers.
Pleasure is the fifth studio album by the Canadian singer-songwriter Feist, released on 28 April 2017, through Universal Music Canada. Thematically, the album is said to explore "emotional limits ... loneliness, private ritual, secrets, shame, mounting pressures, disconnect, tenderness, rejection, care and the lack thereof." All of the songs on the album are actually raw takes, as Feist explained on her Twitter: "Our desire was to record that state without guile or go-to's and to pin the songs down with conviction and our straight up human bodies."
Slowdive is the fourth studio album by English rock band Slowdive. It was released on 5 May 2017 by the record label Dead Oceans. It was Slowdive's first studio album in 22 years, following Pygmalion (1995). It was also the band's first album since Souvlaki (1993) to feature the drummer Simon Scott as a member.
The Nashville Sound is the sixth studio album by Jason Isbell, and the third credited to "Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit". It was released on June 16, 2017. The album was produced by Dave Cobb, who had produced Isbell's previous two albums: Southeastern (2013) and Something More Than Free (2015). At the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, the album won the award for Best Americana Album, and the song "If We Were Vampires" won the award for Best American Roots Song.
All Nerve is the fifth full-length studio album by American alternative rock band the Breeders, released on March 2, 2018, 10 years after their previous album Mountain Battles (2008). A Stereogum article in June 2016 reported that the band was recording new material at their Ohio studio and in October 2017 they released the first single from the album titled "Wait in the Car". 4AD announced on January 9, 2018, that the new album would be made available on March 2, 2018, and released the album's second single, All Nerve on the same day. The album also marks the band's first in 25 years with their Last Splash lineup. Courtney Barnett guests on one song on the album; "Howl at the Summit".
Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest is a studio album by American musician Bill Callahan, released on June 14, 2019, by Drag City. It is the sixth studio album released under his own name, and seventeenth overall when including LPs released as Smog.
Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1 is the third solo album by British singer-songwriter Barry Gibb, which was released on 8 January 2021 by Capitol Records in America and EMI Records internationally. The album features re-imaginings of songs written by the Bee Gees with country music singers. The album's title is taken from a lyric in the song "Butterfly".
Daddy's Home is the sixth studio album by American musician St. Vincent, released on May 14, 2021 by Loma Vista Recordings. Like its predecessor, Masseduction (2017), Clark produced the album alongside Jack Antonoff. Daddy's Home was inspired by Clark's father's release from prison at the end of 2019, as well as the musical palette of New York City in the first half of the 1970s. The record musically incorporates lounge-pop and psychedelic music. The album won the award for Best Alternative Music Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards.
