CD REVIEWS

Alison Krauss + Union Station, "Paper Airplane" (Rounder)

Krauss may have figured she was tempting fate to try a second time to capture the kind of magic she and Robert Plant bottled with their transcendent, Grammy-winning "Raising Sand" album in 2007, or perhaps she simply felt the prepossessing need to reconnect with the bluegrass foundation she has with her longtime band Union Station.

Whatever the motivation, there's no questioning the special symbiotic relationship she shares with singer-guitarist Dan Tyminski, dobro master Jerry Douglas, banjoist-guitarist Ron Block and bassist Barry Bales, who returned to the studio for the first time in seven years for another scintillating outing.

Krauss may hail from Champaign, Ill., but her musical soul was forged in the same hard Appalachian soil from which bluegrass music arose, a spiritual place where life is tough, and only gets tougher, the sole hope being whatever lies above and beyond this mortal coil. And, perhaps, the harmonic comfort music can bring a troubled spirit.

"When I was young my momma would say, 'Well life is hard, but that's OK,' " Krauss sings in Aoife O'Donovan's gothic "Lay My Burden Down." In the title track, she tells a partner outright, "I know our love will die." Tyminski's steely tenor shines in his spotlight vocals on Peter Rowan's "Dustbowl Children" and Tim O'Brien's "On the Outside Looking In."

Most contemporary country musicians steadfastly bypass the dark territory Krauss and her mates mine here, missing out on the deep emotion lurking within it. The loss is theirs. (Target is carrying an exclusive bonus edition with three additional studio tracks plus three live cuts.)

RANDY LEWIS, Los Angeles Times

Bob Dylan, "In Concert: Brandeis University 1963" (Sony Legacy)

Dylan has been doing a great job of tarnishing his legacy -- remember his wretched, almost indecipherable display at this year's Grammys? But there was a time when his voice still had a stunning, pre-burnout clarity, and that's the case on this inspired performance at the Brandeis Folk Festival on May 10, 1963. This is a true discovery, plucked from a concert tape recently found in the archives of Rolling Stone cofounder Ralph Gleason. An opening act at Brandeis that night, Dylan was in superb form, doing songs that would appear on "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" two weeks later and help make him a star. None of the Brandeis tunes were yet commercially available -- and you can hear the crowd audibly blown away by the protest song "Masters of War." Dylan was still in his talkin'-blues phase and further highlights include "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" and the rambling but right-on "Talkin' World War III Blues." But the emotional peak comes on "Ballad of Hollis Brown," a gut-busting look at a poverty-stricken man who turns to violence. Dylan has never sounded more convincing.

STEVE MORSE, BOSTON GLOBE