Time out of town has helped Jeff and Vida find a stronger musical voice. Since they’ve moved to Nashville, the bluegrass that brought the couple together has become more pronounced in their music, and as Selma Chalk suggests, that is a mixed blessing. Vida Wakeman and Jeff Burke have always had a strong ear for a song, and that remains. The songs don’t exactly become bluegrass this time around; instead, bluegrass becomes pop or pop-ish, and Wakeman’s voice has never been better framed. Her intense voice is a highly stylized instrument that’s not for everybody, but she’s remarkable in her ability to make the commonplace sound dramatic and vice versa.

The downside of the more pronounced bluegrass element is that songs that once evoked people in trouble in smaller towns now bring to mind people in places that are 100-plus miles outside cities and 100 years ago. In “Letter to My Love,” she sings as lover of an outlaw for whom she takes the rap. That story could be taking place in urban neighborhoods today as easily as in Appalachia or the Old West, but the musical setting brings the more distant options to mind more quickly. As such, the songs feel timeless, but that means they’re also more remote than they have to be. Still, there’s a lot to be said for tracks that bridge times gone by with today, and leaving connections for listeners to discover gives Selma Chalk legs for anyone who gives it a chance.