Crows
Like her husband Steve Earle, Allison Moorer was a powerful country singer who could never be comforted with all that Nashville had to offer. On her 2010 album, *Crows*, Moorer settles into a gorgeous adult-contemporary setting where her shimmering voice can add a simple grace and elegance to these songs of love and hope. “Easy In the Summertime” has a warm, soothing flow. “Still This Side of Gone” holds a sadness underneath its elevating piano chords. “Like the Rain” retains the country harmonies while its melody and arrangement explores its own sweet, sophisticated texture. Moorer learned quite a bit from her collection of covers, *Mockingbird*, where Nina Simone and Patti Smith received equal coverage. That adventure gave Moorer an insight into her own restless soul. She never comes close to rocking out, but the extra spring in her step for “Sorrow (Don’t Come Around)” shows her attitude is not about to take the backseat to anyone. Even the sad songs retain a defiant pride and determinism.
Allison Moorer may have seemed like one of Nashville's most promising new voices when she first emerged with the album Alabama Song in 1998, but with the passage of time, it's become abundantly clear she has something else in mind besides being contemporary country's Next Big Thing.
Moorer has ventured into the atmospheric, American gothic territory of Neko Case, Fred Eaglesmith, and Scott H. Biram.
Allison Moorer, like her older sister Shelby Lynne, her husband Steve Earle and really, countless other artists from the swamplands outskirts of what is...