In the decade that Chris Young has been recording, his slight, resonant baritone has been both a signature and a disadvantage. Country music recently has favored more strident vocals, voices whose taut textures and strenuous, straight-ahead deliveries pair well with arena-scale bluster. The 30-year-old star has continually confronted the chasm between his mellow expressiveness and colossal, rock- and R&B-schooled production. On his first couple of albums, he polished his neotraditional sensibilities to a high gloss but mostly resisted adapting to amped-up trends. But by 2012’s A.M., he was pivoting between country club bangers and burnished balladry.
Young takes a savvier tack on I’m Comin’ Over, his fifth album and the first on which he steers the production (with co-writer Corey Crowder). This time Young makes the most of dynamics, lifting songs from low-pitch, heart-dragging verses to the pinnacles of their massive, aching hooks. On the title track he sounds resigned, taking stock of a messy breakup. But on the chorus, a gleaming fortress of electric and steel guitar, he leaps an octave and belts out his determination to get to his ex’s house as fast as he can. “Think of You,” a surprisingly well-matched duet with Cassadee Pope, surges from solo introspection to full-blown yearning. Young executes a similar climb in the effusively wounded, Vince Gill-assisted country-pop power ballad “Sober Saturday Night,” and again during “I Know a Guy,” a contrite album highlight.
Intimate closer “What If I Stay,” however, presents a notable, symbolic contrast to the 10 tracks that precede it. The song’s softened phrasing and supple, sensual embellishments are a reminder of the finesse Young sacrifices when he aims his music at the nosebleeds.