Album reviews: Brandy Clark, Puss N Boots, and Last Train Home

Brandy Clark

Your Life Is a Record

(Warner Bros. *** 1/2)

Brandy Clark has had a nice business going for the last decade as a Nashville songwriter to the stars. Kacey Musgraves’ ”Follow Your Arrow” and Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart” are signature songs for those artists, and both were written with Clark and her frequent writing partner, Shane McAnally. Clark’s songs have been regularly covered by huge mainstream country stars, too, including Reba McEntire, Jennifer Nettles, Keith Urban, and Toby Keith.

Finding a wide audience for her own recordings has been a little trickier for Clark. Neither her first album, 2013′s 12 Stories (whose title is a nod to Randy Newman’s 12 Songs), nor 2016’s Big Day in a Small Town set the world on fire, commercially speaking. But both were remarkable collections that displayed an eye for detail, capacity for empathy, and a wry sense of humor that marked her as a writer’s writer, the kind of songsmith who fills her peers with envy.

Your Life Is a Record follows a four-year break, and the end of a 15-year relationship that works its way into enough of the 11 economically sung and played songs here to qualify it as Clark most’s personal album by far.

Her light touch is apparent everywhere on the set produced by Jay Joyce, starting with the opener, “I’ll Be The Sad Song,” and on through the “Bigger Boat,” a lighthearted song about society falling apart that features a froggish guest vocal by Newman.

Clark’s subtle approach is evident on “Pawn Shop,” a saga about giving up on dreams that avoids clichés. And best of all is “Who You Thought I Was,” which gets at heartbreak where it really hurts, with the realization that the wonderful person you were as seen through your ex’s eyes is now gone for good. — Dan DeLuca

Puss N Boots

Sister

(Blue Note ***)

Everything about Puss N Boots signals casual comfort. The trio trade roles among electric guitar, drums and bass and swap lead vocal duties. They keep the arrangements straightforward and unfussy, often with a first-take immediacy, They select covers from nostalgic but disparate sources. They relish good-natured (and sometimes bawdy) humor. But when the performers are as talented as Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson, and Catherine Popper, the results can be as appealing as they are loose. Sister is the second Puss N Boots full-length (they released a Christmas EP last year), and it happily conveys the three women’s friendship and good humor.

Each has a busy career outside the band — Jones has a solo album due soon, Dobson is a jazz-influenced singer-songwriter, Popper an in-demand bass player — but working and writing together, they find common ground in mid-tempo, rootsy electric-guitar-centered songs. The originals, written solo or collectively, are solid, and there’s a sly, bitter streak underlying many of them. But the covers provide many of the highlights: Jones’ sensitive reading of Tom Petty’s “Angel Dream,” Popper’s understated leads on Paul Westerberg’s “It’s a Wonderful Lie," and Concrete Blonde’s “Joey.” That they can let us hear that overplayed chestnut with fresh ears is testimony to Puss N Boots’ casual confidence, too. — Steve Klinge

Eric Brace and Last Train Home

Daytime Highs and Overnight Lows

(Red Beet ***1/2)

It seemed that Last Train Home had left the station for good a long time ago. The group fronted by former Washington Post writer Eric Brace last put out an album over a decade ago, despite occasional touring since then.

An 11-piece juggernaut — plus studio guests — Last Train Home continues to offer an amalgam of country, folk, pop, and rock that is more richly textured and expansive than most Americana, and it does so with sophistication and soul (Brace’s vocals have a lot to do with the latter).

The arrangements enhance the various moods of Daytime Highs and Overnight Lows’ 14 songs, eight of which were written or cowritten by Brace. They range from the poignant ballad “Dear Lorraine,” punctuated by elegiac trumpet and harmonica, to the country-folk narrative “B & O Man” (one of three numbers about trains, fittingly enough), to “Happy Is,” which deftly sets a jaunty musical backdrop against downbeat lyrics.

If there is any doubt that Last Train Home is rolling down the right track, just listen to the group’s thoroughly unironic take on boudoir-soul man Barry White’s “What Am I Gonna Do With You,” which is as infectious as it is unexpected. — Nick Cristiano