Music Review: Sugarland’s new CD exuberant

Posted: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:01 pm

By MICHAEL McCALL For The Associated Press Sugarland, “Love On The Inside” (Mercury Nashville) Sugarland captures the exuberant possibilities of life as well as any modern country act. On “Love On The Inside,” the third album for the duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush, they once again tap into a joyful energy that’s as irresistible as it is catchy. It doesn’t matter if the tune is about something as meaningless as lazily blowing off a work day (the album’s first hit, “All I Want To Do”), as common as the rush of falling in love (“We Run”) or as colorful as a working woman establishing that she may be poor and she may look rough, but she’s not easy to dismiss (“Take Me As I Am”). Fortunately, Sugarland has repeatedly proven capable of more than lighthearted fun, especially on 2007’s award-winning ballad, “Stay.” It’s on the songs where the duo takes their biggest chances, and on the ballads where Nettles unveils what an emotional singer she can be, that the two confirm that they’re in it for the ages. The stripped-down acoustic songs give Nettles the most room to show her talent, this time on the heartbreaking “Keep You” and the wise “Very Last Country Song.” The duo also show some nerve, and plenty of wit, on the goofy “Steve Earle,” about a woman pleading with the alternative singer-songwriter named in the title to fall for her long enough to write a great song about her. It’s in the moments when the band stretches that this million-selling duo paves a platinum road toward a long, sweet future. CHECK THIS OUT: On the simply titled “Love,” the album’s most ambitious song, Nettles and Bush deliver a slow-building, dynamic rocker on par with U2 or Coldplay. Published in The Messenger 7.23.08