Lady Antebellum
Lady Antebellum (Capitol Nashville)
ESSENTIAL "Home Is Where the Heart Is"
Fans of mainstream country music should definitely make space on their shelves and hard drives for this strong debut. While their name conjures visions of dainty movie heroines from the Civil War era, singer-songwriters Dave Haywood, Charles Kelley, and Hillary Scott are firmly rooted in the contemporary.
A rare find in any genre, the entire album holds up from stem to stern as the group deftly gives Nashville what it needs in terms of melody and production polish while mostly sidestepping assembly-line banalities. Drawing on a variety of textures and drenched in bright harmonies, the songs evoke influences as disparate as Greg Allman, Tim McGraw, Elton John, and the Dixie Chicks.
Opening track "Love Don't Live Here," sung by Kelley in a resonant tenor, is a classic kiss-off that motors along with snap and purpose. Scott turns the tables on "Long Gone," in which a woman surprises a man, and perhaps herself, by realizing she's strong enough to walk away.
So impressive is the vocal mesh that it's hard to believe Lady Antebellum only convened as a group in 2006. Kelley and Scott, in particular, do the vocal equivalent of spooning on songs such as the flirty "Lookin' for a Good Time" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." And the entire group soars on "Home Is Where the Heart Is," a kind of reverse of "Wide Open Spaces."
Country music tends to focus on solo artists, but Lady Antebellum deserves a spot alongside recent group successes like Little Big Town and Sugarland. [Sarah Rodman]
