Misty Freeman

Let me make a disclaimer statement:
I like country music.

I just wanted to get that out there, so no one thinks that I just ‘don’t like country’. You will find me listening to Taylor Swift and Brad Paisley most days on my commute to college. So let me be clear in saying I wanted to like Misty Freeman, I really did! I had high hopes for this album, knowing full well that there is a lack of solid country female vocalists in Christian music. That being said…this is not the album to fill the gap.

Let’s start with the good points. The album is well done production-wise, with a sharp looking album design and decent production. Her press shots are lovely, and Miss Freeman possesses a natural beauty that instantly reminds one of actress Julianne Moore. And she truly does have a tolerable country voice, along the lines of mainstream act Miranda Lambert. But the songwriting factor is what kills an album that would have had a lot of potential.

The opener, “Under the Circumstance” is an upbeat, standard country track; it even sounds like a Lambert’s “Gunpowder and Lead” (minus the man-hating lyrics and dynamite fueled anger….). Lyrically however, the song is a disaster from start to finish. The theme is a good idea, but the chorus is clumsy and the rhyming even worse. Miss Freeman did not write this particular song, but the fact that the elementary rhymes consist of pairs like “stand” and “land”, do not help her case. Second track “Cinderella” fares much better, and actually elevates itself to the best track on the album. It’s lyrically much stronger than the first track, and turns the concept of the “Prince of Peace” into a moving fairy tale story. The mandolin backing also lends a classy, more polished air to the song.

Then, things take another wrong turn with “What if I’m Right”. Again, concept is great, and one can’t help think Nichole Nordeman’s similar song on her “Woven and Spun” project. While Nordeman’s track soared, this song lyrically crash lands instead. Take verse one for example, “Some people shop around for a God they can use / The holy bible tells me there is one absolute / I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but I wont apologize / Jesus Christ, air and water, are all a fact of life.” Musically, the instrumentation is strong, but the vocal is poorly mixed, making Freeman sound extremely nasally.

“Rise to the Occasion” manages to sneak by on a thread of believability by utilizing a male vocal addition, but comes across as a little bit frantic, and edges towards screaming by the end. Thankfully, track six, “You are Holy” is like a breath of fresh air in a stifling array of flawed songs. At last, it appears on this song that Misty Freeman is simply singing, and it’s not forced. She finds her niche here by relaxing her voice and not forcing a “country” tone. The end result is quite lovely, even soothing.

Should she stick to songs more suitable for her voice, and drastically improve her songwriting, Misty Freeman has a whole lot of potential. She is likeable, yes, but unable to pull off country with the panache of her mainstream counterparts like Lambert, Martina McBride, and Carrie Underwood. Hopefully that will come with experience and hopefully Miss Freeman will learn to find her identity as an artist instead of settling for sub-par country rhymes.

Tagged as: Misty Freeman, What If I'm Right?

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