music

Various Artists

Words & Music Nashville

Words & Music Nashville serves as a sampler for the upstart record label Adroit, which specializes in offering Music City songwriters the chance to be heard as performers. The initial roster is a mixed bag of newcomers and veterans in a surprisingly wide range of styles. The biggest name on hand is that of Vince Melamed, who offers his own version of the hit he co-wrote for Trisha Yearwood and Don Henley, “Walkaway Joe.” But the most captivating track here is the most unusual: “Bullets,” Lisa Carver’s stark six-and-a-half-minute meditation on the helplessness of a killer without consciousness.

• March 30, 2009
• by Chris Neal