Strait

For the benefit of the geographically challenged, the Bering Strait is the stretch of water, 55 miles across at its narrowest, between western Alaska and eastern Siberia, the place where the U.S. and Russia come the closest to connecting. In fact, since it is frozen over more than half the year, it's the point at which the two countries do connect. The name is an appropriate one, then, to be taken by a Russian group playing Western-style country music….

Strait Out of the Box: Part 2 is the second box set album by American country music artist George Strait. It contains three albums worth of music, dating from 1996 up to 2016. The albums consist of 26 number one singles, 18 album cuts, and 2 new tracks that were co-written by Strait.

Tempting as it may be, Twang cannot be classified as a thematic counterpart to 2008's Troubadour, an album that followed through on its rugged journeyman title. Once the opening title track twangs out of view, the album quickly veers toward the comfortably weathered balladeering that Strait has made his stock in trade for the better part of three decades now, quick enough to suggest that Twang might be little more than another reliably steady Strait record. To be sure, this is recognizably within his comfort zone – as always, when you do it as well as he does, there's no need to change – but beneath that supple exterior there are a few surprises, chief among them the re-emergence of Strait the songwriter…..