Deep Tracks

Faith Hill hasn't released a new album since 2005's Fireflies -- in 2008, she released a holiday set call Joy to the World, but that doesn't qualify as a serious bid for the charts -- so the 2016 appearance of Deep Tracks is a bit of a curiosity. Arriving nearly a decade after 2007's The Hits, Deep Tracks mines 1998's Faith, 1999's Breathe, 2002's Cry, and Fireflies for album cuts, then adds three previously unreleased songs to the mix: "Boy," which she cut near the end of her run at Warner; "Why," which her husband Tim McGraw likes, and a religious song called "Come to Jesus." Apart from the brash "Free," most of this material is either arena ballads or delicate country tunes -- the kind of track that holds an album together but doesn't necessarily stand out on its own. Compiled together, they are a testament to Hill's taste and tact: this is straight-down-the-middle AAA country, music that might not be hooky enough to be a hit, but that certainly speaks to a well-manicured lifestyle.