ONCE there was only one American blonde called Monroe. Not any more.
Tennessee singer-songwriter Ashley Monroe has cut a swathe in her homeland already with Like A Rose, picked as the best country record of 2013 by Billboard, Rolling Stone and The New York Times.
Now its sequel, The Blade, is being given a bigger shove over here, and post-Kacey Musgraves, Monroe should be your next country fix.
The Blade is so named because Monroe wants "every track to cut you in a different way", and with her friend and mentor Vince Gill in the producer's booth alongside Justin Niebank, the songwriting is suitably sharp and piercing, the arrangements and singing traditional yet diverse, with more hooks than in York's old Shambles.
The 13 songs mine the familiar country quarry of lost love, failed dreams and harsh revelations, typified by the dark ballad Bombshell, the vintage Good At Leavin' and sinfully enticing The Devil Don't Want Me, all worthy of the queen of the scene, Dolly Parton.
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