Katrina Elam (CD - 2004)

Personnel: Katrina Elam (percussion, background vocals); Katrina Elam (vocals); Jimmie Lee Sloas (guitar, bass guitar); Keith Urban (electric guitar, banjo); Gordon Kennedy, Stewart Smith (electric guitar); Jerry Douglas , Rob Ickes (dobro); Aubrey Haynie (mandolin, fiddle); Stuart Duncan (fiddle); Anthony LaMarchina, David Davidson , Monisa Angell, David Angell (strings, background vocals); Jonathan Yudkin (strings); Tim Akers (accordion, piano, Clavinet, Hammond b-3 organ); Steve Nathan (piano); Shannon Forest, Shannon Forrest (drums); Wayne Kirkpatrick (percussion); Chip Davis, Dan Tyminski, Robin Lee Bruce, Wes Hightower (background vocals); Bryan Sutton (acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin); J.T. Corenflos (electric guitar); Paul Franklin (steel guitar); Chris McHugh (drums); Eric Darken (percussion).

Audio Mixer: Justin Niebank.

Photographer: Dana Tynan.

With her eponymous first album, Katrina Elam delivers a likeable, promising contemporary country debut. While she's a little too firmly in sway to the Nashville music machine -- who have helped smooth out any rough edges in her music, making it go down easy and getting it ready for the radio -- she shows some flair as a writer, with sturdy melodies and a good eye for detail. She delivers these tunes with conviction that could have used the support of a little more grit in the production. When she does get a relatively rougher sound, as she does on the nicely randy "I Want a Cowboy," both her voice and songs sound fuller and more appealing. Elam has a nice, sweet voice and shows skill as a songwriter. Sometimes these are submerged a bit too much by the studio gloss, but there are enough moments on Katrina Elam to make it a good listen and it suggests that she'll be able to deliver a really good second album. Here's to hoping that she gets the chance to shake it up a bit next time around and let her personality shine through a bit more. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine minimize