Inside Out (MCA, 2001)

No matter the quality of the songs - and here they are very good - the key to what makes Trisha Yearwood click is her voice. The Georgian has range, depth of feeling and the ability to do so with histrionics.

And that is the case yet again her 10th album. Yearwood had to have a strong sense of emotion when singing about the end of relationships (the lyrically excellent "I Don't Paint Myself Into Corners" from Trey Bruce and Rebecca Lynn Howard with lines "When you left you left me with no other choice at all/but to sink to my knees and cry/I never knew just how far a soul could fall/like a rock couldn't stop/didn't try/I locked myself behind shades of misery" and "Harmless Heart"). Not everything is so pessimistic. the title track with Don Henley helping out vocally closes "Come on and let it out, I wanna know you inside out."

Like Yearwood's contemporaries, like Faith Hill, musically Yearwood focuses on more of a pop direction. Country certainly is part of the mix (one of the best songs is a cover of Rosanne Cash's "Seven Year Ache' with Cash helping out vocally), but not exactly front and center. No matter the style, it's Yearwood's voice that carries this outing.