Order 'Hymns of the 49th Parallel' Now

Blessed with one of the most beautiful voices in contemporary pop music -- is there really any competition? -- k. d. lang can turn any song into an emotional tour de force. Throughout her career, she's mixed collections of her own compositions with songbook-style albums of interpretations, from her forays into countrypolitan on 1988's Shadowland through 2002's collaboration with Tony Bennett on Louis Armstrong–affiliated standards. On Hymns of the 49th Parallel, lang mines her native Canada for source material and comes up with a stunning set of understated ballads.

Opening with Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush," lang mixes establish masters such as Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen with younger upstarts like Ron Sexsmith, Bruce Cockburn, and Jane Siberry. Wisely, she lets her voice take center stage while still being a model of restraint; most arrangements build on a singular piano or acoustic guitar line bolstered by soft background strings and a delicate rhythm section, and there's none of the bombast here that lang occasionally indulges in. As a point of contrast, she reprises her own "Simple" from Invincible Summer and improves on the original by simplifying it even more, slowing it down and expanding its range of emotions.

Whether the song is very familiar (Mitchell's "A Case of You," Cohen's "Bird on a Wire") or less so (Siberry's "Love Is Everything," Sexsmith's "Fallen") lang treats it with aching sensitivity.