Natalie Merchant's new album, Leave Your Sleep, was released last week to a number of milestones: it is Merchant's first studio album in seven years and her Nonesuch debut, and it launched at No. 1 on Amazon's bestseller list, a position it has maintained in the ten days since. What's more, as Billboard announced just yesterday, Leave Your Sleep premiered at No. 17 on the Billboard 200 pop charts, Merchant's highest rank on the pop charts since her album Ophelia hit No. 8 in 1998, and No. 1 on the Folk Albums chart, her first time in the top slot since Ophelia's "Kind & Generous" was the most-played tune on adult alternative radio stations that same year.

Merchant performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno earlier this week. You can watch the complete episode online, including her performance of "Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience" off the new album, at nbc.com.

She continues to bring the music of Leave Your Sleep to a select set of intimate venues across the United States. This weekend, she makes stops at the Rubloff Auditorium at The Art Institute of Chicago on Saturday and the Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado, on Sunday. The latter concert is a taping of the NPR music program eTown, on the show's 19th anniversary, for future broadcast, with The Horse Flies performing as well. The Denver Post includes it among the best shows this week. For more tour information, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.

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Utah's The Spectrum says, though the new record has been a long time in coming, it "is worth the wait."

Reviewer Brian Passey praises both the songs and the meticulously crafted package in which it is presented: "Not only is the album a rich collection of music and poetry, it is packaged in book form with copious liner notes about each poet, providing biographical information and the story behind the concept of the album."

Of all the successful songs from which to choose, Passey cites, for "sheer beauty," the album track "Spring and Fall: to a young child," whose "bittersweet melody is among the finest of Merchant's career ... It is simply stunning."

Even as he sings this song's praises, he's quick to put the selection in a larger context. "It's the best song in a collection of 26 excellent compositions," he explains. "There's not a bad apple here. For an album this big that's quite an accomplishment."

Read the complete review at thespectrum.com.

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The Cleveland Scene praises the album's musical diversity. "From the lilting zydeco-flavored 'Adventures of Isabel' to the New Orleans-style jazz swing of 'The Janitor's Boy,'" writes reviewer Jeff Niesel, "Merchant goes all over the musical map and has the vocal pipes to pull it off." He goes on to recommend the complete album version over the "selections" disc, concluding: "The 26-song two-disc set is so strong, it's well worth the investment." Read more at clevescene.com.