In Brief

* * 1/2 Garth Brooks, “Beyond the Season,” Liberty. In Nashville, Christmas albums are like opinions: Everybody’s got one. Brooks throws country’s hottest hat into that ring with his first, which evenly mixes traditional carols a la cowboy with a handful of more recent holiday songs. The less familiar material works best, since Brooks is not so dazzling a vocalist that he can give an entirely new lease to the likes of “What Child Is This” and “White Christmas.” But he’s a kick doing the Buck Owens-Don Rich honky-tonker “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy” and he brings genuine humility to Stephanie Davis’ ballad “The Gift.” He’s always earnest, and intermittently inspired.