Markus Rill - The Price Of Sin

That first-rate American roots music doesn't necessarily have to come out out of Louisiana, Texas, or Kentucky, is proven by Markus Rill. Because that guy lives in Würzburg, Germany which - even by European standards - is not known to be a musical hotbed.

At any rate, Rill lived and went to college in Texas and recorded his newest album The Price Of Sin - his sixth one - using high-caliber musicians in Nashville, Tennessee. It is a mostly acoustic, quiet affair with a wide emotional range from happiness to melancholia.

The opener Singin' In The Cemetery deals with his mother's death three years ago and the album closer Not Ready Yet focuses on his father's serious health issues. And between those bookends wrestling with love and morals and dealing with human fallibility is a constant in these songs.

Although this might sound like heavy fare, listening to this album is a sheer pleasure thanks to Rill's engaging sandpaper voice and grandiose musical contributions on banjo, fiddle, mandolin, accordion, pedal and lap steel, as well as bottleneck guitars. That this guy from Germany has loads of talent and delivers the goods has not gone unnoticed by his American peers or music critics in the USA.