Take It Like a Man

Even in the album’s most vulnerable moments, maybe especially in those moments, Shires is proving what a tough character she really is, exploring territory that singer-songwriters a little less sure of themselves would fear to tread. ... If there’s any danger in letting both power and unguardedness fill her sails, well, she can take that like a catamaran.

Through her vulnerability and strength, she offers her listeners a path to realistically embrace the cycle of ache and joy in relationships, all within the confines of what might be one of the finer albums to come out of Nashville this year.

Shires is clearly stepping into her own with Take It Like A Man, an album of struggle, rebirth and grappling with insecurities and uncertainness while keeping the will to progress as a couple and individual artist alive.

It’s rousing stuff, and with indie-pop producer Lawrence Rothman on hand, her vivid, intentionally raw fiddle-playing is balanced well with expressions of her softer side, seemingly taking inspiration from peers who are blazing trails beyond country’s traditional bounds.

Intense. But the much tougher stuff here is emotional. [Sep 2022, p.86]

A bold re-statement of artistic identity. [Sep 2022, p.25]

For all her strong feelings on Take It Like a Man, Shires remains a poet at heart. If her lyrics here are often forceful, they’re also always evocative and sometimes even elegant, whether she’s revisiting her fondness for bird imagery or seeking the thrill that accompanies a new relationship.

An echoey mix sometimes makes Shires and the players sound as if they’re performing at the bottom of a well—a drier mix would’ve drawn these tales of lust and abandon in sharper colors. But as producer Rothman has the correct instincts: They foreground Shires’ big voice.