If this is what a couple of years in the slammer does for you, I'd go behind bars myself. The Mountain makes it three in a row for Steve Earle. After the glories of El Corazon and I Feel Alright, he'd be forgiven for hitting cruise control for a while, but Stevie's no slouch when it comes to the recording studio, and The Mountain has got the requisite number of sublime moments to warrant a place at this table he's made all by himself.

Genre-bending is what Steve Earle does best. Remember 'My Old Friend The Blues', with its country blues; 'Copperhead Road' with its trash metal rock 'n' country? And 'Valentine's Day' in all its maudlin glory? Well, this time round he's squaring the circle for real. And that means getting inside the skin of bluegrass, and in the company of some of the finest purveyors of Bill Monroe's music, The Del McCoury Band.

Some say that bluegrass came out of a hankering to respectabilise hillbilly and old time music. Earle doesn't march to the beat of that particular drum, but listening to him cradled in the arms of the title track, one suspects he's given to more than the odd bout of worship at the Monroe shrine.