ALBUMS REVIEWS / POP

** 1/2 Iris DeMent, “The Way I Should,” Warner Bros. On DeMent’s second major-label album, her wounded backwoods voice continues to distinguish her from the similarly flavored Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch. But she stumbles on several inelegant moves into social criticism, taking on false preachers, politicians and corporate greed in “Wasteland of the Free” and veering into Oprah territory with the childhood sex-abuse confessional “Letter to Mom,” touching though it is.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).