Barricades & Brickwalls

From one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters to emerge in years, 'Barricades And Brickwalls' has already hit the top of the charts and is 1 1/2 times platinum in her native Australia. Wrapping her stunning voice around true-life stories, Kasey Chambers storms America's musical barricades and brickwalls with melody, emotion and wisdom. Warner Bros. Records.

The hard-edged title cut kicking off this disc suggests that Kasey Chambers might be exploring an entirely different frontier than she did on her 2000 debut, The Captain, but the dozen tracks that follow are much more in line with the sparkling country-folk of her first album. That's good, because at this early stage in her career, there's no reason for Chambers to stray from her obvious strengths: simple but honest lyricism set to tastefully twangy instrumentation and spiked by her alternately sweet and sassy voice rising straight from the South (even if, in her case, it's South Australia). Various guest vocalists add breadth to the proceedings, with results that range from slightly disappointing (Lucinda Williams on "On a Bad Day") to effectively reflective (Paul Kelly on "I Still Pray") to wondrously evocative (Buddy Miller on "Runaway Train") to downright transcendent (Matthew Ryan on "Million Tears"). Mostly, though, it's Chambers's confidence and charm that shines brightly and clearly. --Peter Blackstock