The Balladeer

Drawn from her seemingly bottomless well of quality material, Lori McKenna returns with The Balladeer, her eleventh album and third in collaboration with producer Dave Cobb. While astute personal observations and intimate storytelling have long been hallmarks of her songwriting, the Boston native somehow manages to peel away previously unexamined layers on this deeply personal set. Since her career as one of Nashvilles premier songwriters took off in the latter half of the 2000s, McKenna has been careful to nurture her own muse and maintain a prolific output of her own while paying the bills as the author of chart-topping hits for Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and more. While many writers would be tempted to ride that winning streak for its duration, pausing rarely to dole out the occasional solo album, McKenna has always come across as a singer/songwriter first, doggedly touring and churning out fine albums of earthy, warm-toned folk music that document lifes joys and disappointments with rugged humility and grace. On The Balladeer, its the reflections and realities of middle age that come under the most scrutiny. The title track itself plays like an autobiography of the tender-hearted New England troubadour who brings herself to her own knees with every line so delicate, haunting the smoky folk circuit bars for eternity. McKennas talent for rolling feminine wisdom into clever and poignant turns of phrase plays out in the excellent This Town Is a Woman, a sort of sister song to her 2016 highlight, If Whiskey Were a Woman. Even more so, the complicated but rewarding roles of wife and mother inform many of these songs which unfold in bittersweet paeans like Good Fight, When Youre My Age, and Til Youre Grown. As with her two previous records, Cobbs production is warm and sympathetic with arrangements robust enough to add some weight without getting in the way of another reliably strong collection. ~ Timothy Monger