PURE COUNTRY

By RICHARD CORLISS

It seemed a long shot--a greatest-hits album from a bluegrass band that had never had a hit--but Now That I've Found You by Alison Krauss and Union Station was the from-nowhere find of 1995. A beguiling sample of R. and B., pop and blue-eyed gospel tethered to Krauss' soaring soprano, the CD sold well, won some Grammys and established its lead singer as proof there was still purity and clarity in country music.

So Long So Wrong ought to be Krauss's sellout album--the one where she signs with a big label, paddles in the pop mainstream, does a Streisand duet, maybe has a few cuts produced by Babyface. But Krauss is a constant lass: she's been with Union Station and Rounder Records since she was a 14-year-old fiddle phenom (she's now 25). The new set has no guest shots or power-pop charts. It's just 48 minutes of beautiful music.

Four numbers spotlight other band members in hard-line bluegrass, while the star saws away eloquently on her violin. But there's plenty for fans of Krauss's vocal virtuosity. Mark Simos' Find My Way Back to My Heart (whose melody echoes Paul McCartney's I've Just Seen a Face) is a lesson in hard-earned self-reliance; Happiness (lyric by Michael McDonald) has the ethereal Eire sound of Enya. The anthemic finale, There Is a Reason, begins in a string-quartet drone and escalates to a wilderness cry for salvation. These are songs in the past tense--love mourned, pain savored, from beyond the grave. Or from heaven: Krauss has the voice of a lost angel, beckoning you into the beyond.

--By Richard Corliss