Sounds So Good

Sounds So Good is a nervy title for a debut album, but Ashton Shepherd lives up to that bold declaration. The 21-year-old Leroy, Ala., native arrives as a fully formed talent with a distinctive voice both as a singer and as a songwriter—she wrote or co-wrote 10 of the 11 tracks here. Sounds So Good is dominated by a redneck-woman attitude, but Ashton’s tender side shows up in the gentle “Lost in You” and “Old Memory” as well as the album’s only real misstep, the syrupy “How Big Are Angel Wings.”