Essence is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released on June 5, 2001, by Lost Highway Records.

[3] Reviewers observed a departure from Williams' similarly acclaimed 1998 album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, with Rolling Stone citing the "willful intimacy" in Essence's music[12] and Spin contrasting the "halting, spare" presentation with its predecessor's "giddy, verbose" one.

[14] AllMusic similarly stated "those hoping for another dose of the bluesy roots rock of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road may be disappointed, but if you want to take a deep and compelling look into the heart and soul of a major artist, then you owe it to yourself to hear Essence.

[7] The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau found it "imperfect" but still praised Williams' artistry, saying "[she] is too damn good to deny.

She savors it like a glass of your finest Bordeaux", and called it her "folkiest, gentlest album" and "a steamy slow-crawl — southern humidity as music — that plays into her strengths as the Joan of Dark of the alt-country set".