Impossible Dream;

Patty Griffin's considerable promise is fully realized on Impossible Dream, her fourth studio album. Dixie Chicks fans who loved the trio's cover of Griffin's "Top of the World" will find the blueprint take here, but it's just one of several standouts. "Useless Desires" and "Don't Come Easy" show Griffin in her prime as a heartfelt folk-rock singer-songwriter, while "Love Throws a Line" and "Standing" offer intriguing bluesy/gospel counterpoints. "Kite" nearly floats away on a subtle piano breeze that personifies its mood of Sunday-afternoon solitude. The zenith is "Mother of God", an emotionally wrenching seven-minute masterpiece that begins as a heavy-hearted rumination before transforming midway into an abstract refraction of pure musical radiance and lyrical reassurance, like the cocoon setting loose its beautiful butterfly. --Peter Blackstock