Highways & Honky Tonks
Just when it feels like the end days of hard, imaginative country music are upon us, a release such as this appears and dashes despair. With her first outing for Rounder, Myles has made one of 1998's finest--setting her own standard for country music at millennium's end, writing every song save two classics, and singing all hell out of every line. There's nothing slight, nothing wasted in these 12 songs; the original material is unfailingly strong and effortlessly inventive. Her band--featuring Bob Gothar, Pete Anderson, Marty Rifkin, Gary Brandin, and a propulsive rhythm section--marshals various styles and colors. Shades of progressive bluegrass and Tex-Mex emerge, as well as echoes of Buddy Holly's sound, resulting in taut country rock that nods as often to the Byrds and the Burrito Brothers as to Myles's formative Bakersfield background.--Roy Francis Kasten