Review: I'm With Her 'Sing Me Alive'

When I tallied up the roots and Americana releases of 2025, I'm With Her's Wild and Clear and Blue came out as my favorite. So I was excited to find that the trio planned to release a live album taken from their 2025 tour in support of that album. The album, Sing Me Alive, is a great representation of why this is such a great band. The songs on Sing Me Alive were taken from eight different shows on the tour and range widely across their two albums and some cover songs.

The first thing you notice when listening to Sing Me Alive is how remarkable the production and engineering work is. Depending on the mix, live albums can sometimes feel a little muddy, but the mix on this album is crystal clear, and the balance of voices and instruments perfectly shows off the skills of the artists.

There are plenty of highlights across the album's twenty tracks, but the two biggest ones come from Sara Watkins lead vocal turns. Every roots music album needs a good traveling song, with bonus points if there's a train involved. Enter “Overland.” Told from the perspective of someone during the 19th Century who is leaving Chicago for San Francisco because “If it isn't one thing / then it's one thing more / If it isn't a fever that shows you the door / It's the air, or the water / or the goddamn war.” Watkins' voice is in perfect form here, and the harmony vocals by Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O'Donovan meld seamlessly. Jarosz's melancholy banjo licks punctuate the song's balance of desperation and hope.

Another stunner on Sing Me Alive is “Sisters of the Night Watch.” It's easily the most challenging vocal take from Wild and Clear and Blue and one that I wondered how they'd pull off live. I needn't have worried. Watkins' voice is up to the task, ramping up in intensity and volume until she's practically screaming into the microphone. It's a take that is highly faithful to the album cut but manages to be more raw, more searing, and more intense live.

One of the album's covers is another must for any good roots album, the bluegrass gospel cut. In this case, it's the traditional “Lord, Lead Me On.” It's a song that's been covered by everyone from Bill Monroe to The Gaither Family Band to The Chuck Wagon Gang. But never has it been more successfully covered than here. Here Jarosz takes the vocal lead, though the others spend enough time harmonizing that there is no real clear “lead” vocalist here. It also gives each member a chance to showcase their considerable instrumental talents: Jarosz on the mandolin, Watkins on the fiddle, and O'Donovan on guitar.

Elsewhere, you get the Grammy and Americana Award-winning song “Ancient Light”, the title track from their debut album See You Around, an Aoife O'Donovan showcase on “Different Rocks, Different Hills”, the rambling beauty of “Rhododendron,” and a cover of John Hartford's “Crossing Muddy Waters.” There's plenty more to recommend, but it's easiest just to advise you to go and buy the album. There isn't a skip track across the album's 80-minute runtime. I'm With Her is consistently producing some of the best roots music in the world right now, and Sing Me Alive proves that it isn't just a studio effort. A good live album enhances the studio effort. A great album brings the songs to vivid life. That's what makes this album's title so appropriate. The songs here aren't live, they're alive.