Miranda Lambert - Platinum

RCA 88883792782



Miranda Lambert continues to build a solid body of work as one of the front line of today’s female country singers. Born into the grit of Southern comfort and bred by a homegrown dose of good livin’, Miranda’s fifth album captures the soul of the dynamic Texas bombshell as she ventures over yet another crossroads in her expanding career. It was ten years ago that Miranda signed her major label deal with Sony Music. She was 20 at the time, already well established in Texas and she made it very clear to her new label bosses that she was dead-set on making music on her terms. In her own way, Miranda is one of the most thrilling performers on the contemporary country scene. She completed this album as she turned 30 and over the past ten years she has stuck to her guns. Despite a slow start at country radio—with only three solo number one singles to her name—each album has gone platinum and she’s been named top Female Country Vocalist for the past four years.

PLATINUM spotlights Miranda’s solid songwriting with half the 16 tracks being written or co-written by her, whilst the remainder tend to mirror exactly who she is as she kisses her twenties farewell and embraces her thirties. Picturing familiar places and happenings like favourite local haunts, as well as innately human passions and fears, she takes journeys deep into places both personal and universal, providing light with her sound, and captivating music depicting places in which her thoughts continue to stray. Wit and poignant depth are showcased from the first single, Automatic, which takes us back to those simpler days of the past that we all hanker after, but in reality are rather pleased that things have moved on, to the inevitable reality of Gravity Is A B**ch, which is full of the funny but brutally honest things to look forward to as you grow old disgracefully. Miranda is joined by members of Little Big Town for Smokin’ And Drinkin’ a superb relax y’all smoother with the kind of universal reflection that we can all relate to. Ringing in the musical changes, she calls on the Time Jumpers for All That’s Left, a light-hearted western swing break-up song with an infectious chorus and a great opportunity for the band to showcase their musical skills on fiddles, pedal steel and accordion. Priscilla maintains the light-hearted feel, cleverly comparing Miranda’s life being married to country superstar Blake Shelton with Priscilla Presley’s life with Elvis. Then she comes on with a superb country ballad like Holding On To You, showing that she’s lost none of her old flair for writing tasteful lyrics. My own personal favourite, though, is the very last track, Another Sunday In The South. She offers a nicely shaded performance on a song that paints a laid-back portrait of taking life easy with the vastly underrated Shenandoah as a backdrop with the band’s former lead singer Marty Raybon adding his distinctive vocals to a classic slice of nostalgia.

Not everything works for me on this album. I felt that the duet with Carrie Underwood on Something’ Bad was just that; a heavy slice of rock that didn’t fit comfortably within the rest of the album. But I can forgive that one faux pas as in the main this album features music steeped in tradition yet forward minded. An ambitious work that will reinforce Miranda Lambert’s already impressive artistic and commercial credentials. Its eclectic mix of country, pop, rock and swing should charm listeners with Miranda’s honest, thought-provoking, insightful, melancholic, optimistic, humorous and confessional lyrics that just cannot be categorised … nor for that matter can she.

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