"'The Lost Songs', recorded by [Welch] and David Rawlings over one weekend in 2002 (...), 48 songs in all, lay unheard until they had to be rescued when a tornado hit the pair's recording studio in Nashville ... Apparently the songs were recorded in order to allow Welch to fulfil (and escape) an old publishing contract signed years earlier. As such, notebooks were pored over and any useful snippets turned into short songs. However, there's no sense of urgency nor anything slapdash here. Welch (...) and Rawlings amaze throughout. The pair can mine the darkest seams of Appalachia, swing with a rockabilly vengeance or turn in beautifully crepuscular performances with ease".