Crows

Comment: The details really aren't important; Allison is a fantastic singer who has given us another wonderful album of songs about love, loss, and the difficulty of maintaining an even keel. (I will mention that the title cut, "Crows", is as fine as anything she's ever done). This is all new material, so you'll be getting familiar as you go along.

The voice is pure gold...I am not a country fan, but Allison is not really a country singer, though she is billed as such. She is too rock for country, too country for rock, and has more than a hint of jazz/blues thrown in. (All true of her big sister, Shelby Lynne, as well). Therein may lie her problem; she's tough to classify into one genre, thus isn't better known in any.

I'll make it simple; grab this record and fall in love. If you're a fan, you already have it, but if not, prepare for a revelation. Then go look for all her past recordings...

Comment: I'm giving this 2 stars, not because I like it that much but because Allison's voice is too beautiful to record a 1 star album. I've been a fan of Allison Moorer since she recorded Alabama Song. I thought The Hardest Part was one of the best country albums made. I saw Allison live in Philly just after she released Miss Fortune and she was great. In Getting Somewhere we saw some departure from the country formula that made her a success. All artists tend to spread their wings a little. So it was no surprise that the next two CDs were named after birds. Mockingbird took Allison even farther from her country roots but in Crows we find an artist crossing over way too far from country to more standard "run of the mill" folk and pop. While her sister has pulled a nice switch by flavoring her country twang with some heart felt blues, or paying tribute to some great singer song writers who made some great song, these songs simply lack character. Whereas I once walked around singing Allison's songs, there isn't a song on Crows that I've fallen in love with or that I feel is catchy or noteworthy. The songs are gloomy and most were written in minor keys make them even more morose. That's not a problem as Allison has written a few sad songs in the past, one about her mother, that brought tears to my eyes. But these songs aren't up to snuff with her usual story telling excellence. And there are plenty of folk and pop singers out there. Go onto myspace and you can find plenty of mediocrity among pop singers. Why join them? I always hoped for more from Allison. For my money, I'd just as soon pull out The Show or The Hardest Part and enjoy a beautiful voice singing beautiful melodies. I hope this cd is met with the mediocre sales results that it warrants, not because I mean any ill will toward the artist but because I'm hoping for a wake up call that sends her back to her roots to share the country spotlight that she handed away to others, like Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood.

Comment: I read somewhere about this singer and thought I'd give her a listen. I am not a fan of country music. I am now a big fan of Allison Moorer. This is an artist I can really relate to. My favorite singers are people like Bonnie Raitt, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Judy Collins. I feel Allison belongs in this group. Her songs are lyrical, heartfelt and I can understand every word she says. Hope she tours in my area soon.

Comment: So many of the great female singers that have come down the pike during the last ten to twenty years have come in the Americana genre, and Allison Moorer is one of those. With albums like MOCKINGBIRD, THE DUEL, MISS FORTUNE, and GETTING SOMEWHERE, she has set herself up as a consummate artist--not an easy thing to do in a genre whose artists steadfastly refuse to throw their lot in with the corporate country music establishment that has lauded Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift to the hilt. She's a natural maverick, not unlike her big sister Shelby Lynne or husband Steve Earle, one of the true rebels of recent decades. She just has a different way of showing it on her albums, and CROWS isn't any different.

With the exception of the twelfth track, "It's Gonna Feel Good (When It Stops Hurting)", which was written by the album's producer R.S. Field, everything on CROWS is from Allison's own pen, and her very stately and relaxed, acoustic rock oriented sound, splashed with occasional string sections, mandolin, and pedal steel, makes this a thoroughly listenable album. What is unusual about it, however, is how so many of the songs are in minor keys, giving them a mysterious, eerie quality, and the fact that Allison spends as much time at the piano as she does on guitar. Contrary to how that might sound, however, she doesn't try to imitate Norah Jones on any of her songs, either in vocal inflections or in sound; this album is still uniquely her, and her voice is as refreshing as on her past albums.

Allison, in other words, has done it again; she has made an album that will likely feature in a few Top Ten lists, including mine, when 2010 comes to a close.

Comment: Prime Cuts: The Broken Girl, The Stars and I, Easy in the Summertime

While she entitled her last CD "Mockingbird," this time around another feathered creature gets the honor: the crow. As the harbinger of doom, "The Crow" is an adept symbolical summary of the tenure of these 13 tracks. Each track is cut from the same cloth of sorrow, betrayal and gloom chronicled from Moorer's tragic life. Orphaned at an very early age, Moorer's dad murdered their mother before killing himself. Left on their own for survival, both Moorer and her Grammy Award winning sister Shelby Lynne have forged through the trials and tribulations of life. They had seen and tasted life without its stain-glassed pretense. Thus, Moorer has the right to tell her story via her music. And on "Crows" she tells them with finesse as well as documenting the montage of emotions she has had experienced along the way. Nevertheless, because Moorer has so deeply entrenched herself into these songs, some of them can come across as self-indulgent and a far too myopic.

Standing upon the shoulders of niche-driven singer-songwriters such as Julia Fordham, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Suzanne Vega, the songs on "Crow" defy genre classification. It's almost as if genre becomes secondary to Moorer's need to get the songs off her chest. And so whatever the way the song evolved whether its country, rock, pop or Americana, it takes on form organically. Though what threads all of these songs together is Moorer's use of the piano. Most of these songs feature the use of the ivory keys to great effect. This also means that ballads dominate with 10 out of the 13 cuts being slow tempo numbers. The most affecting ones are the reflective ones whereby Moorer tries to remember the times before her parents' tragedy. Case in point is the beautiful "Easy in the Summertime"--a dreamy Kodak moment of Moorer reflecting on her happier moments of her childhood when she and her family went for a picnic in the outdoors. Moorer's attention paid to details and the way she paints her pictures with her words truly make this a beautiful memory. Other nostalgic moments come with somber "The Stars and I." Though the song runs for over three minutes, it only has eight lines of devastating beauty as Moorer recalls the precious, albeit time she and her sister spent with their late mother.

More tear jerking moments abound with the suicidal "When You Wake Up (Feeling Bad)" which almost reads like the verbatim thoughts of a physiological depressed patient. However, there also lies the problem. At various junctures of the album, Moorer gives in to venting so much of her pain that she becomes repetitive. Song after song of ballad after ballad almost sound like the songs are just part of a very long song. Even the more propulsive numbers are morose: "Just Another Girl," a Jann Arden-esque mid-tempo pop number, again is depreciative in its lyrics. Much better is the lead single "Broken Girl." Grooving along an infectious melody, "Broken Girl" could have been a party tune for Moorer in her ride to the upper rungs of the country chart despite the song's disconsolate lyrics about a girl bruised by life.

On the whole, this is truly a personal CD and Moorer is to be congratulated for bearing her soul. Indeed she has wrung every ounce of beauty and inspiration out of her painful past. She does not just nimble but she shares it with some heavy going emotions imbued. Nevertheless, Moorer like many singer-songwriters sometimes goes a step too far when she devotes the whole CD to just her life's displeasures. Here's hoping she'll be more open to explore other more enlightening issues as well as entertaining a few more songwriters who might diversify the melodic presentation and lyrics more.