The Blade
Don\'t let the opening track on Ashley Monroe\'s third album fool you: \"On to Something Good\" may be full of high-tone, major-key hope, but it\'s just the setup for the emotional ride you\'re about to take. The rest of *The Blade* cuts pretty deep as the country firebrand revisits all sorts of painful heartbreak, moving swiftly between the title track\'s hushed balladry and grand, guitar-slinging honky-tonk (\"I Buried Your Love Alive\")—all backed by a lush, big-room Nashville sound.
Ashley Monroe is a country singer with a peripatetic career: She has worked with Jack White in the Raconteurs, with Wanda Jackson, and belongs to the trio Pistol Annies with Miranda Lambert and Angaleena Presley. She follows up her strong 2013 comeback LP Like a Rose with another collection of songs that hint at pop but remain rooted in classic country traditions.
The first cut on Ashley Monroe’s The Blade is far from its deepest: The poppy opener “On To Something Good” serves as a fleeting note of tentative optimism for everything that follows to reverberate out and away from. The majority of Monroe’s superb third album hunkers down with heartache and struggle.
Ashley Monroe has, for the most part, been relegated to something of a support role in her career. The Tennessee native has…