From the first note of The Price of Sin,  Markus Rill uses a warm and passionate voice that conjures the dark feel of Matthew Ryan. His music has a consuming lyricism, a melancholia that invades the soul like a roaring tide that crashes against the rocks.

This is well-illustrated in both Singing In The Cemetery and Broken Puppet, two ballads that seem to leave in their wake a winding trail of pain through the tortuous pathways of a countryside leading to a misty silver sunrise. Me & Bonnie Parker, in contrast, strikes an energetic, folk rock mood and would have easily fit on Todd Snider’s debut album Songs for the Daily Planets while My Love Runs to You again evokes duskier, melancholy tones. Rill, the only European-based artist on the Blue Rose Label, is no novice. His current album is his fifth follow-up to Gunslinger's Tales his 1997 debut - he belongs to the tradition of singers-songwriteers and has shared the stage with Townes Van Zandt, Chris Knight, Drive by Truckers, Steve Wynn.

An entirely acoustic album, The Price of Sin features a dozen exquisite gems whose instrumentation is never intrusive but rather serves to showcase Rill’s vocal talent. The numbers are also melodically strong with songs such as Run Run Run neatly evoking a country-and-western-style square dance and the sad and wounded Fade to Blue. The album reflects an extraordinary range of emotions that are beautifully mirrored in its sound: from the piercing cry of Fats Kaplins’ steel pedal in Out of the Cold to the raw, scratching of George Bradfute’s dobro that both accentuates the rhythm in Carry My Load to Kaplin's fiddle that provides a lyrical backdrop to the beautiful Not Ready Yet.

Markus Rill has produced one of those albums you can treasure long after you’ve bought it. Perfectly orchestrated by George Bradfute’s measured production and well-supported by this excellent session band this carefully observant artist has shown he is capable of plumbing the depths of the gypsy corners of the heart.

Matteo Strukul