
These up-from-Dixie tunes flow so easily, like conversations over a low backyard fence, that it’s hard to believe Williams spent six years obsessing over each chord and syllable. On “Can’t Let Go,” “I Lost It” she starts with evocative nouns and everyday thoughts (“We put on ZZ Top, and turn ’em up real loud/ I used to think you were strong, I used to think you were proud”) and dramatizes them with indelible country and rock guitar hooks to create a sense of the modern rural South as a place that’s sometimes sad, but always seductive.