On this second solo album Rhiannon Giddens realises all her potential first seen with the Carolina Chocolate Drops. By interpreting traditional songs and writing her own she shines an unforgiving light into the darkness of racial strife and slavery while standing up for civil rights. The woman’s perspective is a recurring theme, a particularly brutal example being ‘At the Purchaser’s Option’. Dirk Powell produced and collaborated to make an album that beats with the sense of struggle through Giddens’ simple, stark folk, blues, some jazz and even rap.
