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Reviews by letter : A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other
Sugarland - Love On The Inside
| Los Angeles Times | Right now, American life feels like one long Cymbalta commercial. Bad news is piling up so fast that it's become a mind-numbing bore. In stores, signs that say things like "you still deserve the little luxuries" try to jolt shoppers out of the doldrums. A relaxing drive will bankrupt you and destroy the earth in the process, and then there's that persistent rumor that the cellphone you use to talk to your therapist really will give you brain cancer.
Well, nothing cures the blues -- temporarily, but still -- better than uplifting, substantial, unifying, humanizing music. I'm here to tell you, fellow mopers, America needs Sugarland.
The Nashville-based singer-songwriter duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush has been making hits for a while but reaches a new peak with its third album "Love on the Inside." This is adult contemporary music that's enough fun for the kids and true-blue country without any trace of flag-waving or bigotry. The 17 songs on the 71-minute "deluxe fan edition" warm to traditions like bluegrass, Muscle Shoals soul and the talking blues, but at its heart, it's all about the unsnobby eclecticism of crossover pop.
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| | Entertainment Weekly | So many honky-tonk badonkadonks later, it's difficult to recall that mainstream country once had a thriving bloc of introspective singer-songwriter types. That was as recently as the early '90s, when sensitive tunesmiths like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Rodney Crowell could still be viable hitmakers, before an incoming wave of Garth-mania swept them to the margins. Sugarland sure seem to remember, though. Love on the Inside, the third CD from the duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush, is, in part, a welcome return to that kind of bygone lyricism, where songs that hooked into the details of human foible and frailty could flourish.
Not that the whole album is that reflective. Sugarland want to evoke Mary Chapin Carpenter, but they want to be Garth, too. Can one act be perceptive troubadours and do the extroverted arena-rock thing? Sugarland make a decent case.
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| | The Phoenix | Not unlike Miley Cyrus in her less ambiguous moments (Breakout kept Loveon the Inside from debuting in the top spot on the Billboard 200 last week), Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush aren’t afraid to get a little goofy for the sake of a laugh. In “Steve Earle,” an up-tempo honky-tonk trifle near the end of their new release, Nettles interrupts her singing with a spoken impersonation of a breathless bride-to-be describing her idea of life with the outlaw artist. (“On Tuesday nights I like to go to trivia, so that’s your night to go out with the boys.”) And though they’re one of Nashville’s biggest success stories, Sugarland also share with Cyrus a sort of post-genre approach to songwriting. Throughout Love on the Inside, Nettles and Bush trick out their twangy tunes with shiny new-wave guitars, creamy pop harmonies, and robust rock beats. These days that’s business as usual on Music Row, of course, but the fresh-faced duo seem even less committed to holding the center than most. They’re the perfect country act for a country unmoored from itself.
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| | All Music Guide | Georgia's chart-topping contemporary country-rock act Sugarland hit pay dirt on their first two albums — their Twice the Speed of Life debut and sophomore Enjoy the Ride sold over two million copies apiece. The duo of Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles initially had their roots in the Georgia alt-rock scene and connected with the more rockist sounds of 21st century country. Scoring hit single and after hit single, the songwriting duo became a top-selling concert draw, but in the pressure and hustle Bush and Nettles became somewhat unsatisfied with their writing and recording processes. For Love on the Inside, they flexed some hard-won industry muscle and successfully lobbied Mercury to let them co-produce their own record (with Byron Gallimore) and record in Georgia instead of Music City. The result is the most organic of Sugarland's three albums. Cut live from the floor, Bush and Nettles' vocals were tracked in the midst of a band playing around them with few overdubs. Repeated takes yielded performance-quality vocals and very natural-sounding guitars, B-3s, mandolins, pianos, and drums (from Matt Chamberlain no less). The songs here are entire levels above anything they've written. Love on the Inside is an album-length reflection on love in its many forms — from new love to grief, betrayal, regret, loss, and rediscovery. There's plenty of the personal in this set — Nettles went through a divorce during its creation (check "It Happens," "Keep You," and "Take Me as I Am").
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| | Billboard | | Sugarland's third album, finely crafted with producer Byron Gallimore, is proof positive that singer/songwriters Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush are on the cusp of superstardom. Hooky and infectious first single "All I Want to Do," currently No. 3 on Hot Country Songs, is a tantalizing tease of the album's breadth. Steamy "What I'd Give" finds Nettles growling her way through a honey-do list that would get any man's blood pumping, while "Keep You" finds her convincingly pleading a seemingly no-win situation. "Joey," a foreboding throwback written with Bill Anderson, leaves one wondering about the title character's fate. ...full text |
| | Blender | As befits Bon Jovi collaborators who play platinum country for car-pooling moms, Sugarland love the ’80s. Their third album opens with two songs about avoiding your job, both applying singer Jennifer Nettles’s pronounced twang to the pop-rock bounce of the Bangles; and “Take Me As I Am”—wherein a tattooed motel employee cleans air-conditioned rooms on 95-degree nights—shouts it out like a Sunset Strip glam gang. Even the more traditional country moments—an eerie mandolin serenade to a woman who has died; a comical talking blues in which Nettles imagines proposing to liberal rabble rouser Steve Earle—tweak Nashville norms. Now and then, the energy lags. But mostly, Sugarland’s shameless mining of VH1 Classic hooks keeps their more tepid tendencies in check. DOWNLOAD “Take Me as I Am,” “Genevieve”
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