Allison Moorer / The Duel [Enhanced]

Where Allison Moorer's last studio album was an elegant, sophisticated update on classic southern country soul, her Sugar Hill Records debut The Duel is heedless and blunt, and a little bit rough around the edges. The opening guitar figure on "I Ain't Giving Up On You," for example, isn't exactly studio house-broken. This is intentional.

Allison and her co-producer/songwriting partner Doyle "Butch" Primm and co-producer R.S Field took a new, thoroughly unrehearsed band into the studio and cut eleven songs in a dozen days. Butch even lured Field into picking up his drumsticks for the first time in 18 years. And the rest of the core ensemble - Adam Landry (Stateside, The Sways), John Davis (Superdrag) - are hardly your first-call Nashville session dudes.

But The Duel isn't exactly a rock record. It's simply the newest installment in the series of deeply personal and profoundly beautiful albums Moorer has made. It's a wee bit louder, that's all.

Listen to samples:

1. I Ain't Giving Up On You
2. Baby Dreamer
3. Melancholy Polly
4. Believe You Me
5. One On The House
6. All Aboard
7. The Duel
8. When Will You Ever Come Down
9. Louise Is In The Blue Moon
10. Once Upon A Time She Said
11. Sing Me To Sleep