Reviewed by David Faulkner

I like reflective female singer/songwriters. So I should enjoy Rhonda Hanson's 1997 debut on the dubiously-named War Machine Records. Plenty of big names do: Ricky Skaggs and the late Mark Heard encouraged her to record, Kelly Willard and Harlan Rogers appear on the CD. We're talking piano-led American AOR music sung in a voice reminiscent of Kim Carnes. But the lyrics veer between the pedestrian and the banal. Rhyming "how very sad" with "how very bad" won't do. The nadir is a song where Hanson apparently couldn't count on her dog Rover, but she could count on the Lord - well, this dog-loving reviewer is struggling for kind words. Hanson needs a writing partner if her music is to shine.

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