Twisted Angel

LeAnn Rimes is all growed up, or so the erstwhile country jailbait’s latest album, Twisted Angel, would have you believe. Maudlin pop ballads, overly slick disco, and icky bump-and-grind R&B replace any trace of her former down-home, Patsy Cline twang, though it’s clear that the songs are not nearly as important here as Rimes herself. Now a wizened 20, she sings like a proud graduate of the Celine Dion School of Overemoting, believing, apparently, that if she sings hard enough, we’ll care about these songs. She’s wrong.