NEW YORK mdash; The album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is the work that introduced Lucinda Williams to most of her fans. It won a Grammy. Rolling Stone and Spin called it one of the top discs of the 1990s.

It has sold twice as much as anything else she rsquo;s done.
It was a career highlight and a straitjacket.
Ever since Car Wheels I rsquo;ve been struggling with where do I go now?

What do I do? says Williams. I was defined by Car Wheels and everything I rsquo;ve done since gets compared to Car Wheels.

West, released Tuesday and her third collection of new music since that 1998 landmark, may be the disc to set her free. Produced by Hal Willner, it rsquo;s a sonic departure with tight writing and experimental song structure. Williams rsquo;s weathered voice and depressing subject matter sound familiar, but it rsquo;s far away from the gravel road.

Frozen by the pressure of following up her signature disc, Williams went nearly five years without writing a thing. She kept touring, playing the same songs over and over.
She took inspiration from Bob Dylan mdash; specifically his late-career resurgence started by the 1997 Time Out of Mind album.

Williams, 54, saw it as Dylan moving forward and not worrying about topping his classics or feeling he had to write in the same way.
I felt like I was going through a similar kind of thing at the time, she said.
I just gave myself permission to kind of simplify my writing a little bit and not feel like every song had to be Drunken Angel or Car Wheels on a Gravel Road or Lake Charles.

It took a long time to write those songs. I had to practice letting go.
For an artist with a reputation for skating the line between perfectionism and paralysis mdash; one sensitive enough to precisely quote from years-old negative reviews mdash; that did take some work.

Her 2001 composition Lonely Girls, a succinct song built around repetition of the title phrase, was another key moment for Williams.
I thought, lsquo;Can I do this? Can I get away with this and put it on a record?

What are people going to think? rsquo; she said. It did draw some mixed reviews.

It took a while. That rsquo;s what rsquo;s happening with my stuff. At first people are not quite sure.

That may be the case with West, a smouldering disc that moves at a slow pace, with only two full-out blues rockers. Willner rsquo;s background is more avant garde than alt country, with Lou Reed, Bill Frisell and tribute albums to Charles Mingus and Thelonius Monk on his production resume.
Willner surrounds her songs with new flavours.

Strings and an organ often swirl beneath Williams rsquo;s voice and guitar, all anchored by Jim Keltner rsquo;s apocalyptic drumming.
The rocker Come On, a blistering put-down of an ex-lover rsquo;s sexual inadequacies, has already been alternately described by critics as hilarious or juvenile.
The songs rsquo; inventiveness and sturdy character on the new album unfold during repeated listenings.

Several steer clear of traditional structures. Mama You Sweet opens with the repetition, four times, of the line I love you mama you sweet, moves to lyrics detailing the psychic toll of pain, then ends with the same phrase, again, repeated four times.
Wrap my Head Around That, essentially a nine-minute rap, is another new song some fans might find jarring.

I rsquo;ve always had an eclectic approach to things, but it took a while to getting around to making it happen, she said.
I rsquo;m just more serious now. I rsquo;m more confident as a writer.

I rsquo;m not afraid to leap over into different styles.
The album rsquo;s themes are dominated by the death in 2004 of Williams rsquo; smother, and the dissolution of yet another ill-advised relationship. On her best new song, Are You Alright, it rsquo;s easy to imagine Williams putting that question either to her mom or an ex-lover.

It was actually neither: she was addressing a brother who has become estranged from the family since their mother rsquo;s death.
Williams rsquo; father, poet Miller Williams, gets the bulk of attention when her family is brought up. While she inherited his literary sense, her piano-playing mother instilled a love for music.

Genetically, I guess I got my musical talent from her, she said.
The album rsquo;s title and optimistic last song is a reflection of Williams rsquo;s mood since moving to the Los Angeles area from Nashville. Although most of the songs on West tread deep and disturbing topics, she rsquo;s actually quite happy now.

She rsquo;s engaged to a man, Tom Overby, who works in the business side of the music industry, meeting him after all the songs on this album had been written. She had recorded them with her band but was interested in finding a new producer. Overby encouraged her to work with Willner.

Most of the producers she had worked with previously were musicians first, people like Steve Earle and Charlie Sexton. She felt comfortable with that shared language, even turning down an overture a few years ago from Rick Rubin, who won a Grammy Sunday for producer of the year and is known for his sympathetic handling of Johnny Cash.
Willner stripped off everything from Williams rsquo;s original recordings except her voice and guitar, and they built from there.

I rsquo;m not sure if it was the right move on my part, but I rsquo;d always shied aways from working with a quote-unquote producer for fear that I might be over-produced or whatever, she said.
Now that I rsquo;ve gone in and worked with Hal Willner, the difference is remarkable. I was listening to this record and saying, lsquo;Why didn rsquo;t we do this before?

rsquo;
It rsquo;s absolutely the best album, sonically, I rsquo;ve ever made, she says.
Confident and happy with her work, Williams did run into one unexpected hurdle. Her former company released a deluxe version of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road late last year packed with extra tracks.

Rolling Stone gave it five stars and I thought, lsquo;Oh, great, now I rsquo;m going to be competing with myself, rsquo; she said. (The same magazine gave West four stars).
What are you going to do?

You can rsquo;t please all the people all the time.