The Hardest Part

On first glance Allison Moorer looks like a typical country tart. Gorgeous face, curvy hips, nice voice—you know the drill. But unlike the interminable parade of Shanias that prance out of Nashville like prom queens, Allison Moorer’s got soul. In fact, her second album teems with it. Not afraid of getting her pretty hands dirty, Moorer piles heartbreak upon heartbreak, tromping all over country’s tried-and-true terrain of loving and leaving without sounding like a tired cliché. The title track will invite some deserving Tammy Wynette comparisons, but it’s the bone-chilling closer that’ll stick with you long after the record has stopped spinning. A stark murder ballad inspired by her parents’ real-life murder-suicide, it’s frightening, gutsy proof that there’s more to Allison Moorer than meets the eye.