While Sierra Hull remains an artist who must be experienced live for maximum impact, A Tip Toe High Wire is the album on which she finds herself and inches ever closer to the masterpiece that’s percolating inside her. 

Hull’s sixth long-player comes 17 years she released Secrets as a teenager and a half-decade after 25 Trips. And Tip Toe finds the mandolinist and singer comfortable in her own skin, embracing her inner Alison Krauss on bluegrass ballads such as “Spitfire” and “Truth be Told,” adding Dobro for good Union Station measure, and expanding her penchant for progressive bluegrass (with drums!) on the more adventurous fare. 

With assists from Tim O’Brien on  “Come out of My Blues,” a sparkling celebration of waning  depression; Aoife O’Donovan on the skittering tour-life tale that is “Let’s Go;” and Béla Fleck on the Flecktonian instrumental “E Tune,” the young Hull also gets some important seals of approval. 

She’s earned every one of them on A Tip Toe High Wire.