The Ones We Never Knew
With her laconic talk-singing style on this dour debut album, this singer-songwriter-guitarist could hardly seem less like the 23-year-old daughter of Hank Williams Jr. (and the granddaughter of country legend Hank Williams). Rather than a straight-up country album, this project is more of a neo-folk-pop affair with a whiny subtext underlying everything. None of this would matter if Williams were a better poet, but her lyrics are mundane and humorless. She tells us on "Sometimes," "I wish I was a fine wine/ I wish I were a good drug/ Hey, and if I were Jesus, maybe I could heal all of us/ Just like a good lover, which one do you prefer?" And on "Velvet Sounds" she sings, "Black and pink and white/ These are colors that remind me of the night." Sadly, the most colorful thing about Williams's CD may be that her backup musicians include a string section named the LoveSponge Quartet.
