Music Review | Brandi Carlile: A Little Bit Of Country Infuses A Pop Instinct

Were about to get country on you, Brandi Carlile said on Friday night, during the encore portion of her second sold-out Bowery Ballroom show. She was speaking some truth — the next song was Johnny Cashs Folsom Prison Blues — but the warning came belatedly. Ms. Carlile and her band had just wrapped up a long set suffused with country feeling, though it wasnt always patently clear.

Brandi Carlile, with Phil Hanseroth on bass, at her show on Friday.

Ms. Carlile, who hails from the outskirts of Seattle, has the kind of voice most Nashville producers would be happy to work with: roomy, dark-hued and bittersweet, with a firmness of purpose and pitch.

She favors one of the classic country-singer devices, an accented break between upper and lower ranges. At times she scoops dramatically up to a note, like a slide guitarist. And in the harmonies she strikes with her creative partners, the twins Tim and Phil Hanseroth, there are hints of bluegrass and Grand Ole Opry twang.

For The Story, her self-assured second album on Columbia, Ms. Carlile worked with the producer T Bone Burnett, the insiders outsider of country. (Or the outsiders insider; sometimes its hard to tell the difference.)

Consisting entirely of original songs, the album evinces a pop instinct even at its most rustic. A useful parallel would be the Indigo Girls, who lend their voices to Cannonball, lyrically one of Ms. Carliles lesser tunes.

Cannonball was the opener on Friday, and Ms. Carlile performed it semi-acoustically, backed by only the lanky Hanseroth brothers on bass and guitar. (The Twin-digo Girls, she called them afterward, with a chuckle.) Then the rest of the band — a cellist, another guitarist and a drummer — emerged for Late Morning Lullaby, the albums first track.

Ms. Carlile brings a wide range of influences into her work, and a few cropped up throughout the show. Follow, from her self-titled debut, sounded a lot like Radioheads No Surprises. A newer tune, Losing Heart, had the feel of an anthem by Ann and Nancy Wilson.

Closer to You, a two-step shuffle, segued into Ive Just Seen a Face, by the Beatles. And My Song evoked Melissa Etheridge, in its declarative tone (Here I am), its metaphoric toughness (My mind is full of razors) and its instrumental punch.

Besides Folsom Prison Blues, there were just two proper covers, and each occupied a dynamic extreme. Ms. Carlile attacked John Fogertys Fortunate Son with abandon, letting the politically charged song speak for itself. By contrast, her final encore was Calling All Angels, originally a duet for Jane Siberry and K. D. Lang; she sang it in a delicate harmony with her younger sister, Tiffany Carlile.

Ms. Carlile managed to compress a similar range of emotion within the tight dimensions of The Story, her albums title track. (Its also her biggest single, thanks to prominent placement on Greys Anatomy.) Phil Hanseroth wrote the tune, a slender 16-bar melody, and the lyrics, which culminate in a timeworn pop refrain: I was made for you.

Somehow Ms. Carlile made the song feel both confessional and monumental. Starting at a whisper and building to a roar, she deployed strategies borrowed from Jeff Buckley, among others. But what came across wasnt any calculation; it was simply the raw power of her voice, and the conviction to let it loose.

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