Trisha Yearwood returns in fine form on Jasper County. The material is well-suited to her and her voice is still so sweet. I especially like "Gimme the Good Stuff" and the lead-off hit single "Georgia Rain". She has lots of fun on songs like "Pistol" and "It's Alright" and the bluesy "Baby Don't You Let Go" and "Sweet Love", which is really clever too. "Try Me" is a standout track, Ronnie Dunn is a perfect touch, I think it would be a big hit on radio.

The only reason I subtract a star is the length, front to back this disc is only 38 minutes long. She had four years...

Making a long-awaited return after a four year hiatus, JASPER COUNTY gives further evidence that Trisha Yearwood is not only one of the genre's finest interpretive singers but also it's strongest female vocalist(sorry Martina). After pouring on a little gloss with 2001's INSIDE OUT, her ninth studio album finds her reuniting with long-time producer Garth Fundis, who's always put Yearwood's song selection and voice front and center and minimized the studio gimickry, as is the case here. While the emotional centerpiece of the record is the sublime "Georgia Rain", there are several other very strong tracks here, particularly the red-hot "Pistol", the gorgeous "Trying To Love You", and the radio-ready "Gimme The Good Stuff". Those aside, there's not a dud among the too-short eleven track set, making this welcome return one of the best country albums of 2005.

Prime Cuts: Love Will Always Win (Duet with Garth Brooks), Tryin' to Love You, Georgia Rain

Instead of reinventing her wheel, Yearwood returns to her mother milk that brought her first to fame. Reuniting with original producer Garth Fundis, there's an incumbent sound that brings to mind her earlier "Hearts in Armor" days, with its share of soaring ballads, thick Delta blues, swaggering rockers and stately propulsive pop tunes. Despite, her meticulous attempts to record and re-record until this CD sheens with satisfaction taking an unprecedented four years in the making, "Jasper County" has not live up to its commercial hype. After making up to a modest number 15, lead single "Georgia Rain" has slip out of the charts obliviously, while the followup "Tryin' to Love You" only hovers around the top 50s. Being as enterprising as she is (after all she's married to the king of marketing Garth Brooks), "Jasper Country" gets another lease of life boasting one bonus track "Love Will Always Win," a duet with hubby Garth Brooks.

Without a doubt, the killer fare here are the ballads with "Love Will Always Win" being the stagger. A full-blown love ballad about the formidable power of love, "Love Will Always Win" finds the couple scintillatingly interweaving soaring declarations with soft whispers of heartfelt devotions. This is a definite event of the year record. Another gem is keyboard-led "Georgia Rain"-a painstaking memoir of a lost love told with such acerbic details as though they were lifted straight out of a person's diary. Such a bitter-sweet texture gets a reprise again on the Bill Boyd and Beth Neilsen Chapman penned "Tryin' to Love You" (first recorded by Chapman before). "Tryin' to Love You," an acoustic ballad about with the protagonist trapped in the entanglements of love that has reached its dead end, is soul searching and heart grabbing.

While "Who Inverted the Wheel" is a bluesy ballad with a wrinkle of the sassiness of Yearwood's top 5 hit "Wrong Side of Memphis." This time again finding our protagonist bemoaning the fact that if wheels, asphalt and cars were not invented, her paramour would not have left. Rocking with a large dose of country soul is "Sweet Love," this Craig Wiseman/Tia Sellers composition is perhaps this CD's most commercial uptempo track. Though the rest of the songs are a tilted towards being lyrically rich exploring the intricate sides of love, many of which are short-changed in terms of their melodies. Not that they are bad, but don't expect another "She's in Love with the Boy," "XXXs and OOOs" or "I Wanna Go Too Far."

Like her peers Lorrie Morgan and Sara Evans, Yearwood will not settle for those non-descript bland "I-heard-it-all-before" type of love songs. Rather, when she sings the Georgian rain, you can smell the first scent of the summer down pour, you can see feel the passion of a long-lost love and you can feel yourself being transported into Jasper County where you'll fall in love again with a lady who is not circumscribed in her outpourings of her emotions. In short, this is life, this is the real thing.

The new Mrs. Garth Brooks has a few words for Faith Hill: "Step aside." Yearwood takes her time with a record to get it right, and this all-country pleaser has all the ingredients for success: smart, upbeat tunes, a fiddle here/a mandolin there, and best of all, that incredible voice. Yearwood fans are going to love the true-country flavor that lasts and lasts. That's what separates Yearwood from many of her contemporaries (hubby included). Her records never sound dated or old. "She's in Love with the Boy" is still as fresh as it was back in 1991.

Trisha's voice sounds better than ever on this cd. All the songs suite her voice perfectly. She has an amazing voice, and these songs fit it to a tee.