Gary Allan

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Dictionary.com defines freedom as "the power to determine action without restraint."

Thus, Gary Allan’s Set You Free is a perfectly named, well-conceived album that embodies his own evolution toward personal, creative freedom. The album, sequenced with a storyline in which a man breaks the restraints of a failed relationship and conquers the loneliness of its aftermath, is the result of Allan’s own journey as a man and as an artist.

He took a number of new steps during the recording process – by mixing up the production team, playing lead guitar on a number of tracks, writing more of his own material and using a handful of new co-writers. As a result, he came up with the most optimistic album of his career, one that acknowledges the hurdles of the past and the ways in which they’ve helped to shape his current sense of renewal.

"It’s all about healing," Allan says. "It’s all about the evolution of getting better."

He has, to be sure, drawn heavily from that viewpoint, mixing honky-tonk bravado and grainy isolation across eight previous studio albums, all the while mining the emotional turf that fuels a life well-lived: the joys of parenting, the heartache of personal loss, the testosterone of disagreement and the unpredictability of love. He registered four #1 singles – "Man To Man," "Tough Little Boys," "Nothing On But The Radio" and "Watching Airplanes" – in addition to such trademark hits such as the lonely "Best I Ever Had" and the swaggering "Right Where I Need To Be." Allan’s amassed seven gold albums in the process – three of them certified platinum, as well – and maintained the admiration of critics for his unwavering uniqueness.

Set You Free is at once familiar and enlightening. Fans who have followed Allan throughout his 17-year recording career will recognize the dark crevasses in the project – the gnarled anger of "Bones," the honest self-examination of "It Ain’t The Whiskey," the sinister self-abuse of "Sand In My Soul."

But as the album’s cinematic plot unfolds, it opens into a refreshing glimpse of self-acceptance. Allan falls into a carefree, quasi-reggae groove on the upbeat "No Worries." He couches past suffering as a tool for a promising future in the driving, penultimate "Pieces." And he closes the album with a dramatic, lush proclamation, "Good As New."

That latter title sums up the emotional place in which Allan finds himself, and he attributes much of it to music.