Old Gold (Signature Sounds, 2012)

Zoe Muth has been positively compared to many great female country singers over her budding career, but it's a relatively obscure artist that mainly comes most to mind while listening to "Old Gold," Muth's new mostly covers EP. There are times when she is simply a dead ringer for Iris DeMent, who has sadly become the J.D. Salinger of country music - rarely seen or heard from. This six-track set mixes DeMent's sadness with Emmylou Harris's regal sweetness, for a beautiful little musical morsel.

Muth's lone original contribution, Walk the Line, finds a woman doing the right Johnny Cash thing, only to be disrespectfully walked on. It's a mid-tempo, acoustic guitar tune, driven by a tired and more than a little disgusted Muth.

A cover of Anna McGarrigle's Heart Like A Wheel is Muth and her trusty Lost High Rollers band riding a sprightly, mandolin-colored and bluegrass-influenced groove, as the singer waxes philosophical about love's unusual nature. With Bill Cantrell's I've Been Deceived, Muth details her romantic regrets over an old-timey honky tonk track. On the latter, Muth is at her DeMent-iest, and nearly invites us to cry right along with her.

This is the sort of collection that makes the listener long to see Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers band live because you know beyond the shadow of a doubt, she's going to pull out many such gems during a typical live set nailing them perfectly.