Allison Moorer

Making a near-perfectB-side to Johnny Cash’s posthumous meditation on death, American VI: Ain’t No Grave, Allison Moorer's eighth studio releasecomes on like just another neo-Nashville croonfest, taking its time to reveal thebrooding layers of grief, damage and ennui. Sure, Crows is occasionally lovely, and comes from a member ranking amongthe living, but as a whole it feels as troubled as anything out of the mouth ofthe Man in Black.

Wooing listeners to“lead me to the ledge and let me dangle from a limb” on the opener, beforemoving to the apt-titled “Goodbye to the Ground,” Moorer is backed by thestandard bare-bones, tears-in-beers modern country outfit. But it’s hard toimagine Emmylou Harris ever feeling this bad. Pianos, warbly guitars, a dobrohere, a string section there, and a general Rick Rubin-like haze underlieMoorer’s hard-up voice. Slowlytraversing many a sordid mile, the singer offers a take on weepy Americana that is starkerthan a Cormac McCarthy landscape, and every bit as haunted.

It's easy to correlateMoorer’s personal demonsher father killed her mother in a murder/suicidebuther sadness seems well removed from anything resembling pity. In truth, anoptimist could take most here to be the remains of just a messy breakup. Eitherway, it's an expansive, empathetic look at people and pain.