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I have a confession to make... I like country music...

I first heard Lucinda Williams' song Sweet Side while hunting through the music options for something bearable while on an international flight. I was intrigued by the blues and country that was infused into this hip-hop style track. I asked a fellow music fan about Williams and he suspected I might enjoy her music, but thought she might be a little bit too country for my liking. I did some research and added the albums Car Wheels On A Gravel Road and World Without Tears to my to-buy list. Several months later I found both of these albums at a CD sale - total price $15.

After several listens I was adding both albums to my CD catalog and was forced to choose a genre. `Americana' is an obvious description for this music. However, I like to choose from the standard dozen genres that most software offers. Neither rock nor blues really fit so for the first time ever I chose country, having previously denied any affection for country music... and I really like these Lucinda Williams albums.

World Without Tears opens with Fruits Of My Labour, a country-blues track with evocative, throaty vocals and moody tremolo guitar. This song is all about restraint and sets the mood brilliantly. Righteously, which follows, is a bit more up-beat and rocky. Just a bit though - the restraint is still there. However, there is a fat, delayed lead guitar that helps things start to rock out a little. Where to next? Ventura is acoustic country rock full of steel guitars and has an obvious mellowing effect. This is closely followed by Real Live Bleeding Fingers And Broken Guitar Strings, an Exile On Main Street era Rolling Stones style romp. I'm a sucker for this type of blues rocker and find this track to be one of the highlights of the album. Follow this with Overtime, a country-folk song laden with more tremolo guitar and you're starting to get an album that is quite mixed up... in a nice way...

The album progresses through more occasionally rocky country-folk (Those Three Days, Minneapolis, People Talkin', World Without Tears, Words Fell), blues (Atonement - although with a psychedelic guitar solo) and country-blues-hip-hop (Sweet Side, American Dream). In fact, although I've obviously tried above, I really don't like trying to categorise these songs. Lucinda Williams is a singer-songwriter who arranges her songs based on numerous influences. The strongest of these influences on World Without Tears is country but the album doesn't descend into simple songs about being abandoned by a lover or having your dog die. That said, Williams' lyrics on this album aren't exactly positive, but they are consistently interesting.

I really like this album and want to hear more music by Lucinda Williams. Her new album West is meant to have a similar sound to World Without Tears. I think I'll add it to my to-but list... Hmmm... more country music?