Lisa O’Kane: It Dont Hurt

Lisa O’Kane has a clear, strong voice with a deep vibrato which she employs like a secret weapon. She can belt out country songs like a honky tonk mama and express the pain of living with a well-placed ache in her voice. O’Kane also shows promise as a songwriter. She penned three out of the 11 songs here and her compositions reveal a thoughtful head and a passionate heart as she sings about the costs of love. Still, the best things here are the cover tunes. Her version of John Prine’s sorrowful “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness” causes goose bumps, and O’Kane can make you cry on Ernest Troost’s title tale of abuse and redemption. This girl from a small town (population less than 40) promises to have a bright future in country music.