Kasey Chambers is the 'first lady' of Australian country, who provides her music with solid rock guitars according to good national custom. She broke through with the excellent album Barricades & Brick Walls (2001). While that album contained both pure rock songs and traditional hillbilly songs, the successor Wayward Angel has a more uniform sound. The different influences have merged into a
… recognizable country rock sound, with the pure bluegrass of Follow You Home as the exception. The beautiful voice of Chambers remains unchanged, a perfect cross between Dolly Parton (the innocence) and Lucinda Williams (the rough edge). Wayward Angel is a real family product, brother Nash Chambers took care of the production and another brother Bill Chambers can be heard on the steel guitar and the dobro. Kasey wrote all the song material herself, in which she has managed to find a good balance between personal outpourings and detached observations. Most impressive song is Paper Airplane, in which Kasey takes on the role of an old man who has just lost his wife. (MS)more
