*** Brooks Williams

SEVEN SISTERS

(Redbird/Green Linnet)

Brooks Williams has always stood to one side of the new-folk heap. That's due partly to the sheer virtuosity of his guitar playing and partly to the fierce individualism of his approach. On his seventh album, the Northampton-based singer/songwriter continues his idiosyncratic ways, opting for a stripped-down, guitar-bass-drums trio with occasional electric violin atop the mix. The result is his most striking album ever, an in-your-face blast of blues-inflected politics and passion that ranges from the Dylanesque cataloguing of greed on "Mother Earth" to the Walker-Percy-meets-Robert-Johnson new-age blues of "Hello Heartbreak" to the swampy folk funk of "Threadbare Soul." Recorded in Toronto with producer Bob Doidge (Cowboy Junkies, Gordon Lightfoot, Crash Test Dummies), Seven Sisters puts Williams's guitar, voice, and entire persona up front, where they belong.

-- Seth Rogovoy