Be Here

1	Days Go By
2	Better Life
3	Making Memories of Us
4	God's Been Good to Me
5	The Hard Way
6	You're My Better Half
7	I Could Fly
8	Tonight I Wanna Cry
9	She's Gotta Be
10	Nobody Drinks Alone
11	Country Comfort
12	Live to Love Another Day
13	These Are the Days

Barnes & Noble

Coming off the double-platinum success of 2002's Golden Road, Aussie country rocker Keith Urban builds on a winning formula with Be Here, one of the year's strongest mainstream offerings. Well-turned original songs, a couple of impressive covers, tight band work, expressive singing, and, of course, some exemplary guitar pickin' on Urban's part are the essential components here, and when they all mesh it's a beautiful thing. They do just that on "You're My Better Half," a sizzling, country-tinged rocker that finds Urban not only singing the praises of his beloved but stepping out with a joyous, soaring guitar solo. In a buoyant arrangement suited to a song titled "I Could Fly," Urban exults in the strengthening power of true love, backed by a funky little herky-jerky groove and a wailing slide guitar solo that jets toward the stratosphere. He conjures a seductive atmosphere, via twangy guitar playing and a heartfelt vocal, on a cover of Rodney Crowell's brilliant love song "Making Memories of Us" (hear the original version on the Notorious Cherry Bombs' debut). Heartbreak gets more than a fair hearing too, on Urban's wrenching, intimate piano ballad "Tonight I Wanna Cry," on which he touches some still-raw nerves in his account of a relationship's demise, his tear-stained vocal sounding close to the bone. He more than does justice to Elton John and Bernie Taupin's "Country Comfort" -- one of the strongest songs in EJ's early canon -- on which his boisterous vocal is set against swirling pedal steel lines and snarling guitar punctuations. Platinum shortage in America? Blame Keith Urban. He's gonna be stockpiling it soon. David McGee

All Music Guide

Keith Urban has been a consistent presence in the Top Ten of the country singles charts since 2000, scoring eight consecutive entries as of the release of his third U.S. solo album, Be Here, the eighth being the disc's leadoff track, "Days Go By." And there's plenty more where that came from. Unlike most other country artists, Urban doesn't restrict himself to ten selections from the Nashville songwriting establishment for his albums. This one contains 13 songs at a generous 55-minute running time, and Urban's name is on nine of them as a co-writer. Thus, the collection can be viewed as more of a singer/songwriter effort than the usual Music City product. From that point of view, the album has a distinct storytelling arc, beginning with the carpe diem sentiments of "Days Go By" and continuing into a series of songs that celebrate life and love, notably Rodney Crowell's unabashedly romantic "Making Memories of Us," which finds Urban doing his best Crowell imitation. Suggestions of struggle begin to intrude as of "God's Been Good to Me," however, and eight songs in Urban abruptly changes the sound and the mood with the piano-and-strings weeper "Tonight I Wanna Cry," a song this reformed drinker confesses in his press materials that his sponsor might not approve of. "She's Gotta Be" picks up the pace, if not the mood, and Matraca Berg and Jim Collins' "Nobody Drinks Alone" brings the singer to a sodden rock bottom before he changes the subject by covering Elton John's "Country Comfort" and finally overcomes adversity in "Live to Love Another Day," then rewrites the album's opening song to look forward again on the album-closing "These Are the Days." The album-length story of optimism and perseverance in the face of romantic turmoil and alcoholic temptation is told musically with Urban's usual collection of fast-picked string instruments, including electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, mandolin, and Dobro (the last played by Bruce Bouton). It's a muscular sound indebted at least as much to rock and bluegrass as to traditional country, but it supports his light, flexible tenor and his essentially upbeat message. William Ruhlmann