Who Needs Pictures

06/01/1999 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Altman

Brad Paisley first got noticed in the mid-'80s as a barely teenaged guitar phenom on Wheeling, W. Va.'s popular Jamboree U.S.A. radio show who often served as opening act for local tour stops by the likes of the Judds, George Jones, and Steve Wariner. A decade-plus later, he's a full-grown triple threat--singing, writing and playing--much in the same vein as the aforementioned Wariner.

This big-league debut is best when Paisley lets the honky-tonk and western swing side of him take over on uptempo tracks such as "Me Neither," "Don't Breathe," and "It Never Woulda Worked Out Anyway." If he can cut down on the sentimentality of trying too hard, such as on ballads like "He Didn't Have To Be" (about stepfathers), and too politically correct sentiments like "Sleepin' On The Foldout" (for lying--about going fishing!), he may have quite a future ahead of him.