Critics and fans alike agreed that Anais Mitchell would have her work cut out for her after the release of her 2010 album “Hadestown,” a powerful album (and stage production) in which each song was part of the whole album’s storyline. The album received such high praise that anything Mitchell produced directly after would have to live up to it. With “Young Man in America” Mitchell takes a step back from the epicstyle and reigns in her artistic ambition to create an album worthy of standing up against “Hadestown” on its own.

“It’s easy to admire ‘Hadestown‘ as a jaw-dropping whole, but we would do well to recognize that it’s only as impressive as it is by virtue of being a patchwork of much smaller moments of exquisite beauty. ‘Young Man in America’ can be described in similar terms. Frequently sounding liberated by the absence of an overarching framework, these songs often draw strength from modesty and simplicity, packed throughout with breathtaking (and tear-jerking) flourishes of vocal agility and musicianship,” said Drowned in Sound’s Russell Warfield.

As if to immediately stop any non-believers in their tracks, Mitchell again proved her talent right off the bat with the title track, “Young Man in America,” a conflicted anthem in which Mitchell’s undeniably girlish voice tells the moving first person story of a young man struggling with what he sees as the plight of his recession generation.

What keeps “Young Man in America” from straying into confusion, with a female singing a male’s story, is Mitchell’s emotional connection. Her voice naturally conveys the innocence of the boy’s struggle so well that you are left listening for her striking words and not worrying about the purposeful discrepancy. Mitchell is also joined by Punch Brothers’ banjo player and vocalist Chris Thile and violinist Jenny Scheinman on this track, adding to the sense of rustic Americana.

“The title should give you some sense of the scale of this album’s lyrics. It’s an appellation that wouldn’t be out of place on a thick novel by Faulkner or Steinbeck. The scale of the songs isn’t quite that ambitious, but Mitchell does set a wide-angle lens on the scope of modern American history. She uses the recurring image of the trust that children put into the hands of their fathers as an allegory about the lower and middle classes putting their futures in the hands of our government,” said American Songwriter’s Robert Ham.

Other highlights on the album include the slow ballad “Coming Down,” a gem that ends all too soon, leaving you yearning for Mitchell’s delicately pristine soprano voice and the plunging melody of the piano. On a song like “Tailor,” Mitchell has the freedom to showcase the depth of her talent as a singer-songwriter, showing off her sometimes breathy vocals, adding just the right bit of whine, and crisp pitch perfection. With dazzling lyrics like, “Now that he’s gone away / there isn’t anyone to say if I’m a diamond or a dime-a-dozen / didn’t I gleam in my father’s eye?”

Mitchell often references father figures throughout the album, and the song “Ships” was inspired by a short story written by her own father, who was a novelist before he became a professor. The album cover features a picture of her father at age 30 as a young man in America.