Natalie Merchant has been in New York City this week to celebrate the release of Leave Your Sleep—her first studio album in seven years and her Nonesuch debut—with a flurry of activity, including two concerts at the New York Ethical Culture Society's Concert Hall, a release-day appearance on ABC's Good Morning America in the show's Times Square studio, an in-store conversation and performance for a capacity crowd at the flagship Barnes & Noble store in Union Square yesterday afternoon, and now a performance on Soundcheck, a program of New York NPR station WNYC. Tune in live online at wnyc.org starting at 2 PM ET or listen to the encore presentation tonight at 10 PM.

Leave Your Sleep was released to great critical acclaim and great popular response, with the album debuting simultaneously at No. 1 on Amazon and No. 3 iTunes.

The critical accolades continues, with the Montreal Gazette giving the album a perfect five stars, making it an "instant classic." The album features more than two dozen poems of different styles set to music across a number of genres, and "amazingly, each setting sounds about perfect," says reviewer Bernard Perusse.

"An accompanying hardback book is filled with fascinating, often sad stories from the lives of the poets behind these haunting landscapes. In short, this is a bona fide album and not a collection of MP3s," Perusse explains, and concludes by recommending the complete two-disc album package.

Read the complete review at montrealgazette.com.

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Blogcritics weighs in as well, exclaiming: "Not only does Leave Your Sleep work, it just might be the best thing that Natalie Merchant has ever done as a solo artist." The album's many musical styles are "spun into a glorious victory," says reviewer Mark Saleski. "Merchant's musical ideas and their inspired realizations draw it all together," says Saleski. "What's so great about this recording is that Merchant makes it all sound very natural."

Leave Your Sleep includes 26 tracks, and, Saleski admits, with so much to enjoy, "it's really tough to pick out standouts (let alone favorites)." Nonetheless, echoing Perusse's sentiment, it's an abundance worth savoring in its completeness. "Yes, there's a lot of material here, but all of it is essential."

Saleski too concurs that the various genres and sources of poetry Merchant marries together work so well, it's as if they were meant to be. "On first listen, I was struck by how this recording held together, despite its varied styles," he concludes. "It's like these melodies and poems had been waiting around all of these years for Natalie Merchant to notice them. 'It's about time,' they all said, 'Let's tell a story.'"

Read the review at blogcritics.com.

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After the years of effort Merchant has dedicated to this project, exclaims fRoots magazine, "she has triumphed." Reviewer Sarah Coxson says the "lyrically eclectic" source material proves well paired with the music in which Merchant placed it, giving the poems "naturally inspired, musically diverse settings." These works are then brought to life by the musicians and "Merchant’s own soft, mellifluous vocals," which "glide effortlessly through a catholic cornucopia of treats" with "vitality and energy ... and each handled with easy aplomb."

Coxcon goes on to cite particular "moments of extreme beauty" as stand-outs for her, and recognizes that, "amongst the whirlwind tour through musical genres, there are some damn fine left-field pop anthems with which any fans of 10,000 Maniacs would be familiar."

The review concludes: "Leave Your Sleep is one of those albums that sounds like it just belongs; timeless and classic. A heartfelt piece of work; I love it."

There's much more at frootsmag.com.

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Pick up a copy of Leave Your Sleep in the Nonesuch Store and receive the complete album as high-quality MP3s at no additional cost.