It’s been 12 years since Kim Miller recorded her delightful six-song Child of the Big Sky, with its unforgettable title tune of a young girl’s memories of West Texas. So any musical endeavor at this point would be something of a risk. But on Risk of the Roar, produced by Miller, Marvin Dykhuis (Tish Hinojosa) and Cam King (Roky Erickson), the former dive master proves that time is her asset, as she crafts meticulous, intimate tales at once hypnotic and seductive, buoyed by a voice remarkable in its ability to express complex emotion. And while the heart of Miller’s art beats for loves lost and found — and the insatiable quest for romantic venture — there’s a welcome political element to her work here as well, as on “Madame Bovary,” in which the title character is given a refreshingly feminist take, or “Must Be a Way,” a hopeful swing tune inspired by a child’s innocent question about war. Recorded in Nashville, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Austin, Miller takes listeners on a tantalizing journey — part lonely temptress, always hopeless romantic — that serves as a sophisticated meditation on the precariousness and possibility involved in risk.
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