Time Is Tight

A Time-Is-Tight Twist in a Country Veteran's Sobriety
Terri Clark's Life Goes On

by Don Allred
December 9th, 2005 3:16 PM Issue 50

Terri tears it down.
photo: Andrew Southam
Terri Clark
Life Goes On
Mercury
Stream "Life Goes On"
Stream "Damn Right" (Windows Media)

Deft and blunt, realistic and yet sexy, country veteran Terri Clark is also
good at setting bass sounds (guitar and drums) to rolling from one mandatory
rim shot to the next, adding not only juice but nuance. For instance, bass
elements growl and purr (while higher-pitched ones yowl and slur) at a b-a-a-d man
in "Easy on the Eyes, Hard on the Heart." Terri's Greatest Hits 1994–2004 has
14 keepers out of 14 tracks, and '03's Pain to Kill has 11 out of 12, but the
new Life Goes On has only six or seven out of 12. The first single, "She
Didn't Have Time," is about not having time to waste. (So she doesn't. The End.)
Such (newly dominant) wishful thinking tends to tighten concepts and
performances too much, until "I Wish He'd Been Drinkin' Whiskey" sends Terri down a
bassment staircase, toward a husband's cold new sobriety. And a refreshing twist in
her own: The "solace" of "Everybody's Gotta Go Sometime" sports a wickedly
bouncy riff, and "Tear It All Down," though thematically "cautionary," actually
sounds (via air-hammer drumming) like it wants to end this disc. (So it does.
The f-f-fitting end, too.) (And cheers to Tinita Tikaram for Twist In My Sobriety !)

(And o course Booker T & The M.G.'s Time Is Tight)

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