WILLIE NELSON FIRST ROSE OF SPRING

THE grizzled drawl of a singing voice, the yearning of a pedal steel, the boxy sound of an acoustic guitar: it must be Willie Nelson!

First Rose Of Spring sees Shotgun

Willie almost entirely in reflective mode, culminating in a lush version of the standard Yesterday When I Was Young.

In fact, a number of songs reference first love; but for a saccharine streak, the record would be a fine companion to later Dylan albums such as Time Out Of Mind.

But Nelson’s not completely lost his edge. On We Are The Cowboys, he takes aim at one of his favourite targets: cowboys (see 2009’s Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other), with lyrics such as “Cowboys are average American people/Texicans, Mexicans, black men and Jews”, that probably still cause a frisson in the Midwest.

The sole exception to this ballad-heavy album is the puckish The Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised, whose protagonist’s backstory is decidedly similar to our present singer’s.

He most successfully pulls at the heartstrings on the beautifully elegiac Stealing Home, but elsewhere his sentimentality becomes a little cloying.