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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > June > 11 > Entry
CD review: Kimmie Rhodes
Kimmie Rhodes
‘Walls Fall Down’
(Sunbird)
With a majestically smooth voice and a gift for matching lyrics and melodies that has made her a favorite of such mainstream country acts as Wynonna Judd, Trisha Yearwood and her hero Emmylou Harris. Wimberley’s Kimmie Rhodes is incapable of making a bad album. But as evidenced by the sweetly pessimistic, yet inconsistent “Walls Fall Down,” she also might be incapable of making another modern masterpiece like “West Texas Heaven,” her 1996 mood piece with the power to dim lights.
Her sound casts a long spiritual shadow on new songs such as “Shining Like a Sun” and “All In All,” but one thing the Lubbock native should stay away from are politically-charged odes. When “Your Majesty” questions how a certain dimwit achieved such a position of power (perhaps also the inspiration for her cover of the Beatles’ “Fool On the Hill”) or when she spits out the lyrics of Rodney Crowell’s “Sex & Gasoline,” the spell is broken.
A song like “There’s a Storm Coming,” which seems to be inspired by the Hurricane Katrina tragedy/travesty, without actually referencing it, works better. And LP closer “Last Seven Seconds” dresses bleakness in lovely musicianship.
All in all, a pretty good record, but not a Kimmie classic.
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