Keep on Loving You (Valory, 2009)

Reba McEntire is on a brand new label for her after spending 25 years on MCA. That's about the only new thing. Well, yes, veteran Mark Bright produced 7 of the 13 songs with mainstay Tony Brown the rest, but it's hard to tell the difference between the two as McEntire sticks with her bread and butter.

That would be her powerful set of vocal chords that can alternate between soft (But Why to the more powerful (Consider Me Gone with the woman forcing the relationship). McEntire's delivery can be forceful with her forceful side close by. As usual, she underscores the role of the woman to make sometimes difficult choices in overcoming obstacles.

McEntire keeps it just on this side of country with pedal steel, fiddle and other country-based instrumentation (She's Turning 50 Today where the wounded woman strikes out on her own, and the swing of I'll Have What She's Having), though she has long favored far more of a pop rock sound (Pink Guitar, which name checks Johnny Cash as if to give street cred). It would be nice if she went for a straight-ahead country disc because on songs such as Nothing to Lose, she goes for a traditional country sounds and has the vocal chops to pull it off no problem. The pop leaning songs are far less interesting.

McEntire has not changed all that much in her musical choices for a long time. Once again, she follows the adage of if it ain't broke...