Apparently Carly Pearce didn't get the memo. Your career is going in exactly the opposite direction from what it should be right now. The script says that if you're a mainstream country starlet who promises early on to keep a little country roots in your sound, as soon as you start seeing success you'll step straight into full blown pop while denouncing country as a Limit your creativity and break the hearts of all your true Blue Country fans.
But Carly Pearce shouted audibly and went upside down by defying the status quo and making real country music in the country mainstream. An EP called 29, released earlier this year, is where she took the first steps away from the country pop sensibilities of her previous endeavors and luckily her label allowed it.
The album is now called 29: Written In Stone and contains the seven songs from the previous EP plus eight new ones, making it almost a completely new album of material that would chill most reviews of the same stuff twice. And if anything, the new additions to the project are even more cutting and more country than the first songs. Carly Pearce doesn't pedal gently to become a country traditionalist, she hits the gas pedal and does so without an apology.
With many of the new songs you don't have to qualify them as “country-sounding for the mainstream” or “good for a mainstream artist”. Forget all of that. Her homage to Coal Miner's daughter and Kentuckian colleague "Dear Miss Loretta", which is sung with Patty Loveless, is freezing cold, no matter which side of Nashville she comes from. The new radio single "Never Wanted To Be That Girl", sung with Ashley McBryde, will tear your heart chambers apart from the cutting knowledge of history.
"Your Drinkin ', My Problem" and "Diamondback" are a bit more sensible, but still solid country and well-made songs. That's one of the things if you choose to become a mainstream traditionalist in the country these days. There are excellent songs just waiting to be cut. Not only is Carly recognized as a co-writer on every track, but works with Brandy Clark, Ashley McBryde, Emily Shackleton and even Shane McAnally, who just like his work with Midland has shown that he is good at capturing the traditional side of country, when He decides.
The two new songs that end the set on "All The Whiskey in the World" and "Mean It This Time" are also very strong country pieces and well-written, and all work within the underlying theme and evolving narrative thread Record that Carly Pearce is carrying her heart and emotions after her divorce from colleague Michael Ray. Carly's Divorce Record> Kacey's Divorce Record.
Now a member of the Grand Ole Opry and once a child prodigy singing traditional country and bluegrass in Dollywood at Pigeon Forge, Carly Pearce has successfully wedged a broomstick between the gears of the Music Row machine, escaped the sausage factory assembly line, and successfully done what many of young women moving to Nashville are fully up to speed before they get eaten up by the system: go country stars.
1 3/4 arms high (8/10)
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Carly Pearce’s 29: Buy written in Stone
