Coming off the double-platinum success of 2002's
Golden Road, Aussie country rocker Keith Urban builds on a winning formula with
Be Here, one of the year's strongest mainstream offerings. Well-turned original songs, a couple of impressive covers, tight band work, expressive singing, and, of course, some exemplary guitar pickin' on Urban's part are the essential components here, and when they all mesh it's a beautiful thing. They do just that on "You're My Better Half," a sizzling, country-tinged rocker that finds Urban not only singing the praises of his beloved but stepping out with a joyous, soaring guitar solo. In a buoyant arrangement suited to a song titled "I Could Fly," Urban exults in the strengthening power of true love, backed by a funky little herky-jerky groove and a wailing slide guitar solo that jets toward the stratosphere. He conjures a seductive atmosphere, via twangy guitar playing and a heartfelt vocal, on a cover of
Rodney Crowell's brilliant love song "Making Memories of Us" (hear the original version on the Notorious Cherry Bombs'
debut). Heartbreak gets more than a fair hearing too, on Urban's wrenching, intimate piano ballad "Tonight I Wanna Cry," on which he touches some still-raw nerves in his account of a relationship's demise, his tear-stained vocal sounding close to the bone. He more than does justice to
Elton John and Bernie Taupin's "Country Comfort" -- one of the strongest songs in EJ's early canon -- on which his boisterous vocal is set against swirling pedal steel lines and snarling guitar punctuations. Platinum shortage in America? Blame Keith Urban. He's gonna be stockpiling it soon.
