Shepherd stretches stories over multiple songs on So Good

Country music is at its best when the songs tell a story. These songs, such as Rascal Flatts’… Country music is at its best when the songs tell a story. These songs, such as Rascal Flatts’ “Skin” and Martina McBride’s “Concrete Angel,” tend to be the most moving as they portray life’s tragically beautiful sides.

These stories often conclude within the song, but newcomer Ashton Shepherd has set out to change this.

Sounds So Good Ashton Shepherd Rocks like Martina McBride, Carrie Underwood MCA Nashville

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Shepherd, 21, hails from Coffeeville, Ala., and brings a classic yet fresh voice to the airwaves of country music.

She demonstrates beautiful control over her twangy, powerful voice as she tells her story.

On Shepherd’s debut album, Sounds So Good, there’s one story that takes more than a single song to tell.

The subject may seem overdone – especially in country music – at first, but the songs are so stunningly sung by Shepherd, you would think she’d be the first person ever to sing about breaking up with the love of her life.

“Taking off This Pain,” the album’s first track, commences Shepherd’s story about this man. A fiddle and steel guitar support her power vocals.

“Pain” depicts a subpar marriage that’s bound to fail, and Shepherd sings about finally ending the relationship.

“I’m the only one who can set myself free / So, I’m taking off this pain you put on me.”

After a few songs that depict her partying and starting new relationships, “Old Memory” describes how Shepherd still isn’t over her feelings for her ex.

She sees him at the bar, recalls the smell of his cologne and the feel of his skin. Then, the man walks right past her without a greeting and dances with another woman.

“He’s just an old memory that don’t remember me,” Shepherd sings. “And I can’t get over him.”

“Regular Joe” recounts Shepherd meeting her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend in a bar – yes, this does sound like she is stalking him a little, but it’s easy to get lost in the songs and forget the creepiness.

Surprisingly, Shepherd tells the new girlfriend how wonderful this man is and not to let him go.

“I told her ‘He ain’t your regular Joe, you know / And I’m the crazy fool who let him go / And if he says he loves you, then that’s what he means,'” she sings.

Its subject matter makes “Joe” unique and the most impressive song on the album.

The final song to this epic story of broken love lapses back into another clich’eacute;d category: drinking one’s pain away.

“Whiskey Won the Battle” begins with a dark acoustic intro and almost sounds like a sad and somewhat scary Wild West song.

Shepherd sings about how she tried to drink away his memory: “Whiskey won the battle, but your memory won the war,” Shepherd sings.

The album isn’t all heartache, though. There are plenty of upbeat songs, including the title track and “Not Right Now.”

In “Sounds So Good,” Shepherd sings about experiencing nature, country-music style.

The banjo and mandolin accompany her vocals as she describes the “sound of a cooler slushin’ on the bed of your truck