Posted in: Picture | No Comments | July 8, 2011
West Virginia-born singer Kathy Mattea, best known for hits like “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses” and “Where’ve You Been,” has often set her musical sights higher than the sort of cliché-ridden romantic fodder for moonstruck teens and self-absorbed twentysomethings that’s so typical with contemporary country radio fare. On Roses, her first release on the small Narada label, Mattea digs even deeper, while often giving free rein to her enduring penchants for Celtic influences and New Age philosophizing. Here she grapples with “grown-up” issues like grief and loss (“Till I Turn to You” and “Ashes in the Wind,” written by her husband Jon Vezner) and the human potential for placing love and forgiveness above hate and retaliation (“Guns of Love” and Allen Shamblin and Beth Nielsen Chapman’s “Who We Are”). Now and again Mattea lightens up a bit with mid- and uptempo gems like the contemporary gospel parable “That’s All the Lumber You Sent” and a beautiful cover of Kim Richey’s lilting “I’m Alright.” –Bob Allen – Amazon.com
