Diamonds In the Dark

The Sugar Hill label made its name releasing top-notch bluegrass and folk records, but it has also carved a nifty little niche for itself in the roots rock genre, putting out the occasional gem of tightly crafted, often country-tinged pop music by the likes of Don Dixon and James McMurtry. Its latest acquisition is the grittily brilliant Boston-based singer/songwriter Sarah Borges, whose second album (and first for Sugar Hill) pulls in influences as diverse as X, Dolly Parton, Wanda Jackson, 1960s bubblegum pop, and the entire state of Texas. The album's opening track is a brilliantly rollicking piece of modern rockabilly, and is quickly followed by a relatively obscure X cover ("Come Back to Me"), which is itself followed by a hand-clapping, finger-snapping love ditty by Greg Cartwright titled "Stop and Think It Over." Elsewhere she delivers a rather standard-issue country weeper (for which she really doesn't have quite the right kind of voice), a sharp and nasty roadhouse blues ("Open Up Your Back Door"), the briskly rocking "Diablito," and a tender and spooky arrangement of Tom Waits' "Blind Love." Very, very nice.