Ignore her indie pedigree: Chan Marshall has always been a soul singer. That she's opened for Liz Phair, recorded with members of Sonic Youth and Dirty Three (not to mention Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl) and made a highly acclaimed career out of her unsettling yet seductive brand of indie folk is negligible-Marshall, the voice behind Cat Power, has always captured a husky, cigarette-stained sensuality that is unique and unmatched among her peers.

While always compelling, her work never quite seemed comfortable until now. The Greatest corrects this dichotomy, resulting in her best album to date. It pegs a familiar aesthetic-of smoky nightclubs and dusty brass instruments, with a narrator mired in sorrow and sympathy-invoking most notably Dusty Springfield's 1969 magnum opus Dusty in Memphis.

Like the White Lady of Soul herself, Marshall recorded The Greatest in Memphis, assembling a band of seasoned studio players including Al Green-collaborator and guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, his brother Leroy (bass) and drummer Steve Potts, of Booker T. and the MGs. The band holed up with producer Stuart Sikes in Ardent Studios-which lists Big Star, Isaac Hayes, Led Zeppelin, The Replacements, Bob Dylan, Al Green himself and myriad others among its alumni-and recorded this 12-song exultation of Southern loss, heartbreak, redemption and salvation. For the famously introverted Marshall, it's unexpectedly confident. At least in sound, it rarely wallows in the despair of past releases.

The vivid and balladic "The Greatest" begins the album with the sort of lonely piano line familiar to Cat Power fans, but is soon awash in distant guitar twangs and gorgeous string swells. "In came the rush of the flood," she sings, "stars at night turned you to dust," her lyrics telling of an aspiring boxer with all her usual poignancy.

With its lazy trumpet and minimal piano melody, "Lived in Bars" begins just as simply, but by the time it hits its coda, it becomes the stuff of bustling jazz clubs on cold nights and of fond memories rekindled through bourbon-soaked soul. Moments like this, so abundant through The Greatest, will render tiresome any questions of the relevance of a classic-sounding soul record in 2006. This is far from pastiche-there may not be a more heartfelt album released this year.