And so, Valgeir Sigurdsson's Bedroom Community has welcomed another member to the fold with open arms and a steaming Hot Toddy. After the phenomenal success of their last three releases, both artistically and commercially, the stakes were high for Sam Amidon as he boarded a plane for Reykjavík, Iceland . Away from his modest home-recording setup and thrown head-first into Sigurdsson's state-of-the-art Greenhouse Studios, Sam was left to concentrate on his intuitive interpretations of ageold folk-songs, a skill on which he proves himself to be a unique talent, drawing simultaneously on his experiences growing up a child of folk musicians in Vermont, and his more recent work in New York with the experimental indie-rock bands Doveman & Stars Like Fleas. From the opening notes of the first track, 'Sugar Baby', it's as clear as an Alabama night that All is Well is a different album to his previous offerings, and by the album centerpiece, the wistfully poignant 'Saro', its obvious that this album is very special indeed. With horns erupting and dissipating around the listener, Amidon's trademark delivery is perfectly offset by the tenderly plucked notes of his six-string. Nico Muhly's orchestration is not the only addition to Amidon's barrel of sounds. A dizzying amalgam of trombone, Eyvind Kang's ghostly viola, and processed percussion convert a children's singing game from the Georgia Sea Islands into the ominous ambiguity of 'Little Johnny Brown'. The distinctive bass of Ben Frost is evident on the pensive 'Fall on My Knees', while subtle layers of electronics add an intrinsically modern aspect to the proceedings. Couple this with Sigurdsson's production wizardry and you'll realize that despite links to the Appalachian folk music of the past, All Is Well is an album that could only exist in the present. As the album closes with its title-track, Sam leaves the listener with a feeling of resolution parallel to that of a keen reader thumbing the last page of a favorite novel. He sings of death's spindly fingers finding him, a prospect he handles with no trepidation - for he has Muhly's flourishing orchestrations to give him courage and form a stable bed for his tender lyricisms. In the length of an album, Amidon has struggled through gunfights, paternal tensions, religious guilt and the lonely life of a nomad, but he leaves us with the message that 'all is well'; a defining statement on an album that, despite its shadowy underbelly, is bound to warm the hearts of even the of coldest moonshine-swilling gun-slingers and bring strength to every yellowbelly in town...