MEGAN MUNROE does Dolly better than Dolly does!

This is a review of Megan Munroe's debut album, "One More Broken String".

I tell you that, dear friends, because I'm now going to talk about Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton is one of Country's greats. Part of her appeal is her voice: it has a tonal quality unmatched anywhere in music (until now); Parton has the ability to put breathless emotion in places where most singers can't even hit the notes and to power up and hit the notes in places where most people don't know there are places OR notes! She is brilliant.

So I don't say this lightly. Megan Munroe can out-sing Parton!

OK. So I put the CD into the player and set off on my review.  A couple of tracks stand out, a couple leave me unimpressed.

Finally, five tracks into the album that it all comes clear to me. "Leavin' Memphis" sees Munroe expose her brilliance for the world to see.

Here, she growls some lines, whispers some, breathes some like pillow talk and sings pure, true and powerful when she needs to. And all in one song. Only one artist alive has ever done that, to my knowledge. Dolly Parton. Only Megan Munroe is better. WAY better!!!

That it takes talent to be able to sing like this is obvious. But it also takes technical skill and she has both in spades!!

As if to stress the point, she follows track five with track six (OF COURSE SHE DOES, stupid!!).

I mean, she follows this with "Angel On Fire". This is hoedown fiddles and pace and lyrics Parton would be proud of - might even envy! It's a wonderful romp and, again, she out-Dolly's Dolly.

But every one of these songs pales to insignificance when we reach track nine --
"Shameless Fool".  This is pure Country balladry at it's superb best and AGAIN, she's out doing Dolly!!

Wonderful fiddle by Tim Crouch weaves around her immense powerful vocals, and she pulls the Parton stunt again. Adding power  to pathos and doing it with an assured expertise which suggests she has a long career ahead of her.

One gripe (hey there has to be ONE!)  At two minutes nineteen seconds, the mixer/mastering engineers missed a power overload which will send most folks hi-fi's/IPods into paroxysms of overload. BAD WORK!

"Lonely Tonight" makes a superb closer for the album and I take my hat off to Tim Crouch for his wonderful contribution on the fiddle.

I tell you: if someone at a major label doesn't pick this kid up from this song, then Diamond Music are quids in.

Elsewhere, when the magic isn't quite with Munroe, we get "Nothing Is Easy" ... a ballad where she demonstrates that she has the skills to make it as a writer. There are wonderful phrases which show how deep the words go while her vocals move easily between sotto voce pain and heartbreak to power pain and hurt. Brilliant.

"Pennies In The Ocean" demonstrates Megan's vocal skills again, but the recording/mix wrecks the effect. She starts with so much compression on her close miked voice that it's overpowering for the rest of the mix. It's a good song, the vocals, when she pulls out and lets rip, are incredible. Sad that the tech guys failed where Megan could succeed.

The sound effects on "Belle Mead" are a waste of space but the song is lyrically one of the most powerful on the album, and Munroe really shows she can push feelings into vocals.

"Angel On My Shoulder" is a powerful opener, but the rough edges (left deliberately rough, I suspect/hope) are just a little too far from "produced" to work. It's a good song but doesn't quite cut it.

"Moonshine" is excellent but the strings (??) or B3 hitting inbetween phrases sounds like it sits right outside the mix, and it distracts so much that the song loses some of it's power.

"Perfect Storm" is a nice song with a very strange intro, but nice will never make it to the top! The same applies to "Speechless".

 "Good Fight" is just bad music ... an attempt at Country rock which falls miserably between two stools.