Ashley Monroe is one-third of country Pistol Annies, along with country superstar Miranda Lambert and if-only Angaleena Presley. Although she only took lead on Hell on Heels‘ “Beige,” she shared songwriting credit on three Lambert songs and contributed to four group numbers. She also boasts a credit on Lambert’s piledriving “Me and My Cigarettes” and the reflective “Heart Like Mine” from 2009’s Revolution. On Like a Rose, her first solo album since surviving major label chicanery, she boasts a dulcet tenor that doesn’t push its limits and isn’t mesmerized by its prettiness. It often isn’t enough. A couple of times I primed myself for Lambert and Presley’s intrusions, especially on feisty numbers like “Weeds Against The Roses” that require sardonic foils for the second verses (Dolly Parton could handle sweet ‘n’ sardonic). But she knocked me out with “You Got Me,” where the pedal steel and rising organ chords crest as she sighs about sleeping at night until the cravin’ for him wakes her up. The sweetness turns dusky on the I’m-drunk-on-you lament “The Morning After.” Robert Christgau rather shrewdly covered Monroe and Kellie Pickler’s 2012 100 Proof in today’s Expert Witness column and, to my ears, should have switched the grades: Pickler’s debut had the memorable tunes. The self-explanatory Blake Shelton duet “You Ain’t Dolly (And You Ain’t Porter)” is a disappointment. Although Shelton, richer in timbre than he’s been in years (his best vocal since “Who Are You When I’m Not Lookin'”), is up to the challenge, the production exiles them to soundstages half a world away. The violins saw away and the tinkling honkytonk piano, underscoring the ironical title: the singers humbly bowing to their limits doesn’t stop them from giving it a go anyway.
Humanizing The Vacuum 