Sara Evans: Stronger

"Every syllable sounds calm and considered. ... There’s some joy, but not a lot, on this modest but sharp album, which continues the argument for Ms. Evans as an unjustly underappreciated country singer who’s becoming more assured as she gets older. Mostly, she’s concerned with melancholy here. 'What That Drink Cost Me' is morbid and resentful: 'I lost a good man to a bad habit/He didn’t love the whiskey, he just had to have it.' The beautiful single 'A Little Bit Stronger' is about the slow crawl out of a taxing relationship. 'It doesn’t happen overnight/But you turn around and a month’s gone by/And you realize you haven’t cried.' Again, she doesn’t sound exhausted or woebegone, giving her words a force of purpose and skipping melodrama altogether. Same goes for her gentle, regretful cover of Rod Stewart’s antic 'My Heart Can’t Tell You No,' and 'Alone,' on which she initially appears to be welcoming a lover’s affections, but is really just letting him down gently" (Jon Caramanica, "Critics' Choice," New York Times, 3/7/11).
View catalog record here!