How I Feel
While Terri Clark's first two albums were solid affairs, they too often placed this Canadian in the position of living up to an "Emotional Girl" image with emotionally superficial material.How I Feel, though, takes a significant step forward with smart anthems of survival and soaring, plainspoken ballads that are more likely to express complex emotions than to simply proclaim them. The spunky "You're Easy on the Eyes" sounds like her playful earlier hits, while "I'm Alright" and the bluesy "Getting Even with the Blues" place her music somewhere between the traditionalism of Patty Loveless and the singer-songwriter pop of Mary-Chapin Carpenter. Even accounting for the clichéd and treacly sentiments that appear on the album's closing tracks, this is easily Clark's best album yet.--David Cantwell