** GEORGE STRAIT, “Carrying Your Love With Me,” MCA Nashville

How has the man from Pearsall, Texas, kept alive his remarkable hit streak--at least one No. 1 country hit annually for the last 15 years--when virtually every other country singer who started out with him has faded into the sunset?

Like Dirty Harry, Strait knows his limitations, and like Clint Eastwood, he plays to his strengths as he gets older. It helps that he still fills the bill as a hunk, albeit one with more lines on his face than the kids in country’s freshman class.

At 44, he’s not the world’s most powerful singer, and though he sounds more sprightly than ever, he’s still unable to breathe life into the vaguely drawn ballads here with vocal power alone.

Of the up-tempo tunes, which Strait characteristically handles best, only a couple rise above the Nashville routine. “Round About You” has a play on the title phrase that’s engaging enough, while Mark D. Sanders and Ed Hill’s “That’s Me (Every Chance I Get)” nicely extends the winsome Hank Williams tradition. One or the other should carry the Strait streak into ’97.

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* Excerpts from these albums and other recent releases are available on The Times’ World Wide Web site. Point your browser to: https:/ /www.latimes.com/soundclips