Kasey Rausch

Kasey Rausch has the perfect narrator's voice. She enunciates clearly, landing squarely on every end rhyme so listeners can be certain that her girls do in fact have heads full of curls. She avoids frills, other than an appealing quiver during her country-tinged numbers and an unconvincing growl during her mystifying "House of the Rising Sun" makeover. Rausch's sparse approach essentially isolates her words, but for the most part, her unassuming picaresques don't reward such scrutiny. "Big-busted women" and cowboys make cameos without contributing any action, and even fast-flying fiddles can't convert these staid stories into riveting listening. Rausch capitalizes on her catchiest lines, turning Peek out the window/Sun burns my eyes into a solid ballad and building a silly sing-along from Your grass is as high as my ass. Her backing band saws strings with rustic flair, and its harmonies hug her pitch through tight three-minute tunes. Born Near the Waters overflows with instrumental potential, but it lacks sufficient lyrical depth.