Little Big Town new album reviews

[Livia]

The FM references continue....


Little Big Town's well-executed mix of country, pop, rock and folk is emblematic of Nashville's ever-extending diversity.

Fleetwood Mac meets the Eagles in the brisk album-opener, Fine Line. Southern rock envelops the lush harmonies of Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Roads, Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook on the CD's defiant debut single, I'm With the Band. Funky Keith Richards-style guitar opens the rocking Novocaine, while the haunting anti-abuse song, Evangeline, echoes Stevie Nicks on Mac's Gold Dust Woman. Sometimes it's too much, such as in To Know Love, which comes close to sampling Lindsey Buckingham's acoustic picking in Landslide.

But Little Big Town largely manages to put a fresh spin on sounds pioneered by others. The bitter, rootsy Lonely Enough, about the death of Roads' first husband, and the acoustic rocker Vapor, about the loss of Westbrook's father, are prime examples. After struggling at two other record labels, Little Big Town has found a groove that fits well with what's being played on modern country radio.

- Larry Rodgers

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...04bigtown.html

[michelej1]

http://www.austin360.com/music/conte...1/1104cds.html

Little Big Town's songs go their own way
Sunday, November 04, 2007

Little Big Town - 'A Place to Land'
(Equity Music Group)


A note from Little Big Town guitarist Jimi Westbrook, as reported by CMT.com, on their new album "A Place to Land": "We're fans of albums that you listen to from start to finish, like 'Rumours' and 'Red Headed Stranger.' "

You have to admire his honesty; those two references sum up the band about well as humanly possible. In fact, everything about Little Big Town screams "country act modeled after Fleetwood Mac" — the multiple lead singers, the close harmonies, the tasteful guitar solos, the tightly rendered songcraft which lands just barely on the box marked "country." Imagine a group basing their aesthetic on the Dixie Chicks' cover of "Landslide" and you have a pretty good idea of Little Big Town's M.O. (In fairness, that cover was in 2001 and Little Big Town has been kicking around since 1999.) Karen Fairchild and Westbrook are even married to each other: uh-oh.

All of that said, they've learned all the right moves from the Mac. The earnestness on "A Place to Land" never sounds forced or too dramatic; their way with a tune saves them. "Fine Line" pleas for emotional intimacy without selling out to whining. "I'm With the Band" both celebrates and laments the endless one-nighters of a hard-working band, while "Novocaine" might as well be easy listening country rock. "Evangeline" is a tightrope, a mediation on the complexities of emotional abuse that just barely errs on the side of awkward. ("Evangeline, you're a hard one/ Your denial is bolstered by your dreams/ Thinking love is gonna save you /But it ain't love if it's mean.") The Mac would be proud.

Recommended tracks:'I'm With the Band,' 'Lonely Enough'

[Livia]

Little Big Town channels '70s with new artistic direction

MUSIC: Little Big Town starts new creative direction with 'A Place to Land' cover art


09:42 AM CST on Monday, November 5, 2007

By MARIO TARRADELL / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]

The members of Little Big Town remember the record album. Heck, the quartet is even trying to persuade its label, Nashville's Equity Music Group, to release the new A Place to Land on vinyl.

"That album cover looks like it should be vinyl," singer Karen Fairchild, 38, says by phone from a tour stop in Sacramento, Calif.

With help from fellow bandmates Phillip Sweet, Kimberly Roads Schlapman and Jimi Westbrook, who's also her husband, Ms. Fairchild art-directed the packaging of A Place to Land. That cover, drenched in rich sepia tones, showcases the members surrounded by vintage furniture as they pose in front of an old shack. The hippie-chic lettering is very '70s. Think classic Grateful Dead LPs.

"We wanted to do something really creative," Ms. Fairchild says. "We found a guy in Nashville who is a graphic designer, and we talked to him. We wanted to show some growth, move in a new direction even with the art. He totally got it."

The look of A Place to Land, which is in stores Tuesday, matches the sound. Buoyed by the breakthrough success of 2005's The Road to Here, a million-selling disc that spawned four country hits and received a slew of industry award nominations, LBT decided to delve further into its Fleetwood Mac and Eagles influences. The result is an inspired batch of a dozen songs that retain a country flavor while clearly tapping into a bold, tuneful mixture of So-Cal pop and Southern rock. And at every turn you get that exquisite four-part harmony interplay.

A Place to Land works from beginning to end. There's a musical, even lyrical thread that ties the opener, the Mac-informed "Fine Line" to the closer, the Eagles-heavy "Fury," and everything in between. That was intentional.

"It was to make a collection of songs that are from a certain period of time," she says. "You don't want to fast-forward because you are going to miss a moment. We wanted to make those kinds of records. One song leads into another. I love The Road to Here, but A Place to Land reflects more of the intensity of the band.

"Is this the death of the record? That makes me really sad. I understand that it could be heading that way. But I like hearing somebody hash it out and write top to bottom what they were thinking at that moment."

Ms. Fairchild and her musical pals are living in the moment. That means nurturing their creativity no matter where it takes them. These band members will no longer compromise. They did enough of that. Having endured two botched major-label experiences – first a fruitless deal with Mercury Records Nashville, then a Sony-Monument contract that produced the paltry 2002 debut, Little Big Town –the group won't buckle again.

"When that record came out, I knew it wasn't a true representation of the band," Ms. Fairchild says of the artistic and commercial dud that was Little Big Town. "But you kind of don't know you're compromising so much when you're in the moment. It took us a while to figure out what went wrong. The struggles and the failures made us so protective about what we do now, the record covers, the logos. We want to make sure we can go to sleep at night."

With grand musical changes came equally significant personal alterations. Ms. Roads' first husband died of a heart attack the same year The Road to Here was released. She is now remarried and recently gave birth to a daughter. Mr. Sweet recently wed and will be a daddy by the end of this year. Plus, Ms. Fairchild exchanged nuptial vows with Mr. Westbrook in May 2006.

Is married life easier or harder when you're in the same band?

"Not to say that we don't butt heads, but the funny thing is we butt heads over creative things, songwriting, lyrics, something in the studio," she says. "We're both so stubborn. Now there is this safety net with each other. I absolutely love that fact that I get to enjoy this journey with him.

"It's so cool to sing in front of a crowd at an awards show and look over and see Alan Jackson and Sheryl Crow, people you respect so much, and see it and enjoy it together. We get along really well, and when we don't we go to the back of the bus and say nothing. He's my soul mate. I'm not always easy to understand. We're both insecure artists, so that raises some problems. But aren't all artists insecure?"

There isn't an insecure note in A Place to Land. Ms. Fairchild and her Little Big Town family know exactly what they're doing.


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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.36cafe5.html

[Livia]

http://www.countrystandardtime.com/d..._Place_To_Land

A Place To Land – 2007 (Equity)
Little Big Town
Reviewed by Robert Loy

If "Rumors-" era Fleetwood Mac was just starting out today, they would be considered a country band. Need proof? Meet Little Big Town.

The oxymoronically-named quartet does the kind of country music that would have been considered mainstream rock in the '60s or '70s. They seem to be playing this generational kinship up on their third album. The band's new logo would have been right at home on a vintage Jefferson Airplane rock poster. And check out Karen Fairchild's psychedelic miniskirt and go-go boots or the sepia-seeped cover shot evoking as it does some classic Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young) albums.

Which is not to say that LBT are derivative, they're not. Out of time, maybe, but not derivative. Not even CS&N were making harmonies as compelling as these, and their lyrics are more mature than their marijuana-tinged forebears. "Vapor" is not about cannabis, but about living life to the fullest. The first single "I'm With the Band" is not a groupie's memoirs, but an ode to the road and the traveling life. They occasionally overstretch themselves lyrically (as on "Vapor" where the singer says he wants to leave a legacy similar to Jesus's), but more often, as on "Evangeline," an examination of spousal abuse and why some people accept it, they get their message across without losing their sprightliness.

Want to know why so many people are nostalgic for the '70's? Meet Little Big Town.