Thunder & Roses

Country veteran Pam Tillis, known for hits like "Maybe It Was Memphis" and "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial," has a trilling, falsetto-tinged, little-girlish singing style that's part Tammy Wynette and part Cyndi Lauper. But on most of the cuts on 2001's Thunder & Roses, her seventh album, Tillis sounds all grown up. This time around she turns much of her attention to early midlife dilemmas like growing old ("Which Five Years"), the challenges of second marriages (a lovely ballad she cowrote called "Off-White"), and the search for untarnished love in a tarnished world (the title tune and "Please"). Occasionally--as on the starry-eyed "Please" and "Waiting On the Wind," a sappy duet with her father Mel Tillis--Tillis still sounds like a ditzy kid with hair spray on the brain. But when she grapples with meaningful issues, as she does on the despairing "It Isn't Just Raining," the coldly assessing "Be a Man," and a sassy growing-up song called "Tryin'," she hits big emotional bull's-eyes time and again. --Bob Allen