In Brief

On her first album in three years, Loveless’ voice is lighter, higher and generally livelier than ever. Her song selection, however, is still hit and miss. The album’s one knockout, “Thirsty,” is surrounded by some engagingly lightweight country-pop rockers and a couple of ballads that aim higher than they hit. Her reluctance--or inability--to dive headlong into the deep end of the emotional pool keeps “She Never Stopped Loving Him” from becoming the distaff version of the tear-jerker classic “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.