Grammy award winner and good ‘ol country gal Shelby Lynne does her best to break down the mythical fourth wall between listener and artist on ‘Suit Yourself’ the gutsy yet woozily mellow follow-up to 2003’s highly acclaimed Identity Crisis. Self-produced at home and featuring all manner of impromptu stops, false starts, tinkling ice cubes and cassette noises it’s a candid and open handed musical affair evoking a night out on the back porch just horsing around with your mates who just happen to be prodigious and gifted session musicians. Like Sheryl Crow’s curiously successful Tuesday Night Music Club tracks like ‘I Cry Everyday’ and ‘You’re The Man’ unravel in an unusually natural and comfortable fashion, akin to pulling on your favourite sweater, cracking open a Budweiser and settling down to your favourite episode of ‘Friends’. There’s a lot of cannon fodder, a liberal dose of clichés but all the blood, sweat and tears a Studer 24-track recording console can offer.
Best of the bunch by far though is the plaintive dry vocal and solitary guitar of the eerily pretty lament ‘Where Am I Now’ proving our Shelby to be a storyteller of genuine ‘Man In Black’ worth: sympathetic but wholly unapologetic.
The first take is the deepest. Whoa yeah…