Stand Fall Repeat

Michelle Anthony doesn't reinvent anything on this album, but offers more of the dark and somewhat dingy country ballads that bring to mind Kathleen Edwards, Allison Moorer, or Gillian Welch raised on a heap of alt.country albums. Her songwriting and mundane narrative on the opener, "Mourning Song," visit territory Lucinda Williams touched on during Essence. Produced by former Wilco member Jay Bennett, the album has a world-weary aura that's consistently strong. The pace picks up nicely on the adorable country-cum-roots rock "Don't Deny." Here, Anthony loosens up vocally for a stellar performance and a hook-filled chorus. It's as if Natalie Merchant went to Austin, TX, and never came back. A mellower "All This Time" is pleasing but doesn't quite get over the proverbial bar that the first two did easily. She is more successful on the piano-driven "Radio Waves," which evokes images of an Americana-ized Sarah McLachlan. It perhaps also draws closer to Sheryl Crow's The Globe Sessions. Another sleeper pick might be the pop-tinged "Ivy Rider," which is pure bliss as Anthony shows off her chops. Crow's influence is definitely discerned on "Family Tree (The Ballad of Jack Rice)," which recalls Tuesday Night Music Club or There Goes the Neighborhood. The short and punchy Richards-like riffs can't help "Analog Feeling," though. The sultry blues-meets-pop during "Bubble Clock" is one of the album's highlights, a hard-driving roadhouse tune resembling Bonnie Raitt with something to prove. A gorgeous barroom piano introduces the slower country ballad "Closer," which Anthony hits out of the park. It's hard not to like.