Hard Rain Don't Last
Darryl Worley's debut races through the holesBrad Paisleyhas recently punched through country radio. Like Paisley, Worley sings with a relaxed and pleasant twang, loads his swinging arrangements with plenty of fiddles and pedal steel, and then, just as key, keeps the drums low enough so that you can actually hear those other strengths. No song here is as indelible as Paisley's "He Didn't Have to Be." But "A Good Day to Run" and "Feels Like Work," which solve a blue collar grind and a lousy marriage, respectively, by grabbing hands and running away to a smoking Strangers-styled groove, and "Those Less Fortunate Than I," which knows running away is sometimes no solution at all, are more than close enough. And Worley himself had a hand in writing 10 of these 12 tunes. This one's sure to be one of the better country debuts of 2000.--David Cantwell