The Highwomen The Highwomen 2LP (Vinyl)

The Highwomen is a new, highly anticipated, collaborative movement formed by Brandi Carlie, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires. "Anyone can be a Highwoman," Brandi Carlile notes. "It's about banding together, abandoning as much ego as humanly possible, holding one another up and amplifying other women every chance we get. Shoulder to shoulder. One push, one love."

Continually demonstrating the importance of inclusion and collaboration, The Highwomen are joined by several guest musicians, vocalists and songwriters across the album. The project features Sheryl Crow (background vocals, bass), Yola (vocals, background vocals), Dave Cobb (acoustic/electric guitar), Jason Isbell (acoustic/electric guitar), Phil Hanseroth (bass, background vocals), Tim Hanseroth (guitar, background vocals), Chris Powell (drums) and Peter Levin (piano and keyboards) with songs written by Carlile, Hemby, Morris, Shires, Isbell, the Hanseroth twins, Rodney Clawson, Lori McKenna, Miranda Lambert and Ray LaMontagne among many others.

The Highwomen's first album is full of gems that give each individual member a chance to shine. And that's nowhere as clear as the title track, which reworks 1985's 'The Highwaymen' for a quartet of stories about women struggling with misogyny, immigration and racism.

Miles of gorgeous harmonies set this album in the direct lineage not just of the Highwaymen, whose legends traded verses the way rap-posse cuts do, but also of Trio, the album-length collaboration between Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris, which scaled back the pop and country-rock directions the singers pursued in the '80s in favor of covers and intricate vocal interplay. Highwomen soars thanks to a fighting spirit, a love of singing, and a refined sense of its place in history. It's a dream team-up by turns uplifting enough to elicit good-spirited chuckles and gutting enough to bring you to tears, sometimes in the space of a single song. Great country ushers you into your feelings and coaches you out of them. Highwomen excels at the job.

The Highwomen feels like an entire subset of the Nashville scene rallying together to make a statement. On punchy highlight 'Loose Change,' Morris sings about being devalued by a man, ultimately proclaiming, 'I'm gonna be somebody's lucky penny someday/ 'Stead of rollin' 'round in your pocket like loose change.' Whether or not the album yields hits, The Highwomen is already fulfilling that promise writ large. The album is a creative triumph and a meaningful cultural artifact; the joy and resilience emanating off it is worth a fortune.

The Highwomen is a country album for the ages, filled with joy, laughter, tears, pain, and shit-kicking honky-tonk soul.