K.D. LANG Sing It Loud (2011 UK 10-track CD album - With 'Sing it Loud', her first studio album in three years, KD Lang is, in one sense, revisiting her roots. She's backed by a new, full-time band, Siss Boom Bang, which recalls, in spirit if not sound, the exhilarating work she created at the start of her career with her original band, The Reclines. But she's also breaking new ground as a songwriter and producer collaborating on this elegant yet rough-around-the-edges set with multi-instrumentalist Joe Pisapia, previously a member of jam-band stalwarts Guster. 'Sing It Loud' embraces both the dramatic and easygoing; lead-off track, and first single, 'I Confess', is all torch and twang; this impassioned, first-person narrative about romantic longing and reconciliation - proving once again that the best part of breaking up is indeed making up - reaches a stirring, Roy Orbison-like crescendo of strings. While Lang's previous studio album, 2008's 'Watershed', featured strikingly understated vocal performances, alternately contemplative and sensual, this time she returns to belting it out whenever the songs, and the emotions, demand. Conversely, on tracks like the inspirational 'Sing It Loud' and the gently nostalgic 'Inglewood', she keeps her performances softer and more intimate, though no less compelling; these impeccably arranged, small-combo tracks recall the classic country-rock feel of fellow Canadian Neil Young's 'Harvest'. She also offers a graceful rendition of the Talking Heads' 'Heaven', another thoughtfully chosen cover that she immediately makes her own. Complete with a 20-page picture booklet!)