This young Canadian singer-songwriter delivers a sucker punch of an American debut. While it may take a few listens for some of the material to sink in, Kathleen Edwards plainly has attitude to burn and a killer band to back it up. As a rootsy artist who sings about sexual attraction and betrayal with a languid breathiness, she inevitably has been tagged a younger Lucinda Williams, but it would make as much sense to describe her as an alt-country Ani DiFranco or a female Ryan Adams. What's most powerful in her music, however, seems to come from a deeper, more personal place than the study of other artists: from the violent climax of "Six O' Clock News" to the bitter resignation of "Hockey Skates" to the buoyantly rocking resilience of "12 Bellevue" to the offhand sensuality of "Westby." Plainly, she's unconcerned with ruffling feathers, titling one number "One More Song the Radio Won't Like" and elsewhere asking the musical question "Do you think your boys' club will crumble just because of a loudmouth girl?" --Don McLeese
