Delicious Surprise

On her fourth studio album, Messina, country's queen of hope and empowerment, roars back after a four-year hiatus, during which she went public with a stint at rehab and broke off a nine-year relationship with her fiancé. Those events stand at the center of two of the best ballads on the album ("It Gets Better" and "Sometimes Love Is Just Not Enough"), and please not only because Messina wrote (or cowrote) them from real-life struggles, but because the songs soften the numbing bombast that producers Byron Gallimore and Mark Bright bring to the rest of her repertoire. The singer--big-voiced, expansive, and as comforting as an old friend--is always a welcome presence on the radio, as she is on the album's first single, the upbeat and attitudinal kiss-off "My Give a Damn's Busted." What she needs is more songs like this that break her out of her usual mold (in addition to the aforementioned tracks that showcase her quieter side) and allow her to deliver a surprise or two. The ones offered here aren't quite as "delicious" as the album title promises, but even the most casual listener senses that Messina has so much spunk and grit that she'll gather them yet, her myopic producers be damned. --Alanna Nash