On repeated listens The Harrow & the Harvest feels mysterious and is replete with events alluded to, but unsung. Many of their albums are like this carefully written to sound like folk manuscripts handed down across the ages, illuminated by David Rawlings’s eloquent guitar.

The Harrow & the Harvest is especially full of drama that occurs off-camera. It is the best kind of record: one that lures you in and soothes you with harmonies and banjo, only to leave you wondering what the hell just happened. The mystery starts on the cover a faintly art deco affair casting Welch and her partner as neo-medieval figures surrounded by significant flora and fauna, art that recalls the cover of Joanna Newsom’s Ys.

There are riddles within, too. “Scarlet Town” invokes a deep well, a dark grave and an iron bell and unmentioned happenings that “did mortif