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Alison Krauss 's most recent triumph, the certified-platinum Raising Sand, her 2007 collaboration with Robert Plant and producer T Bone Burnett, notched up a total of six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year, bringing her unsurpassed total to 26. That mesmerizing modern-day masterpiece sets the stage for another stunner: Paper Airplane, the artist's first album of all-new recordings in partnership with her remarkably skillful and renowned band Union Station since 2004's Lonely Runs Both Ways. Throughout her remarkable career, which spans a quarter century, though she's only 39, Krauss has remained grounded and real. Deeply introspective as an artist, she's commensurately outgoing and spontaneous in conversation-both sides of her character evidencing a life- bracing humanity. In her work, Krauss has managed to consistently locate the fertile common ground between traditional modes and topical themes. On Paper Airplane, she and the band somehow managed to plumb the depths of Krauss' own psyche while also capturing the zeitgeist, so that this portrait of the artist doubles as a portrait of America as a whole at a crucial moment in its history.