Hell On Heels-Pistol Annies (Columbia)

This is just fabulous. As if Miranda Lambert couldn’t get any hotter, she’s got such an abundance of creative juices churning to the surface now, she’s had to come up with another outlet to let it flow, lest her head explode. Ashley Monroe, one of her partners in this group was signed to the label about the same time Miranda was, but the stars didn’t align in quite the same way for her. Great talent and wonderful songs didn’t translate to airplay success. I’ve still got three cuts from Ashley’s first album in my list of personal faves. Maybe a hit or three from this project will bring her earlier work back to the front burner. She ought’a be a solo star, too. The third lady, Angaleena Presley plays the part of the dark haired vamp. She wrote Ashton Shepard’s “Look It Up”, showing the same kick-butt sensibilities as the other two. This record is the war song of a clearly sociopathic narcissist. A dominatrix who plows through men like popcorn at the movie house, takin’ ’em for everything and makin’ ’em like it. And it sung so sweetly. Imagine early Judds with whips in their hands. I’ll be very surprised if our lady Country listeners don’t learn all the words to this one immediately so they can roll up the car windows and sing along with it loudly. It’s like a woman’s version of a Transformers movie. Pure scorched earth escapism. And us boys can dig it, too. (is that word still operable?) We’d like to spend just one night with this kind of uber-estrogen, then run for the hills the next day, ‘fore she eats the flesh off our bones.