Comin' On Strong (2003)

Trace Adkins, a real-deal roughneck with an earth-moving baritone, tends to extremes of up-tempo attitude or fist-clenching melodrama on Comin' On Strong. He's best in between, as with ''Baby's Gone,'' a moving mea culpa, or the title track, which suggests George Strait with a sexier voice. Too bad the well-written oil-driller song ''Missing You'' gets waterlogged with strings. ''Untamed'' captures the CD's key shortcoming: His tough talk can get neutered by production as tame as soft-rock radio.