Sugarland experiments with its sound, disappoints

Apparently, Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush have never heard the wise… Apparently, Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush have never heard the wise proverb that says that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

The Country Music Association’s reigning Duo of the Year’s third album, Love on the Inside, takes Sugarland’s music in a stark new direction, but the raw-sounding songs fall short of what fans have come to expect from the duo. Their first two albums, 2004’s Twice the Speed of Life and 2006’s Enjoy the Ride, both went platinum and produced several No.1 hits. However, there is little resemblance to those hits on this album.

The only song that might reach the top of the charts is the first single from the album, ‘All I Wanna Do.’ This upbeat acoustic song about not wanting to do anything but make love is slightly annoying at first.

‘I’ve got better things to do than my to-do list anyway / Let’s just hide under the covers and waste away the day,’ sings lead vocalist Nettles.

The verses are catchy and fun, but the chorus is questionable. It features Nettles singing ‘All I wanna do,’ but she holds the last note for three too many measures. Though annoying at first, the song has a fun message, and it grows on you. It’s one of those songs that you try not to like, but you find yourself dancing along.

The rest of the album is surprisingly sub-par. It seems like the duo was trying to duplicate the emotionally moving aura produced by the group’s hit ‘Stay.’ But the emotions of ‘Stay’ are one of a kind because of its unique topic: an affair from the view of the ‘other woman.’

The emotional songs in this album are strikingly predictable. ‘Joey,’ ‘Genevieve,’ ‘Keep You’ and ‘What I’d Give’ are all about lost love. Nettles’ vocals work well with these songs, but there is nothing else about these songs that stands out. The instrumentals are not very notable — they mainly serve to accompany Nettles’ voice.

The only one of these songs with potential is ‘Joey,’ which is a ‘what if’ song that describes what is going through a woman’s mind when her boyfriend dies while driving drunk. The song definitely makes the listener think.

‘What if I spoke up / What if I took the keys,’ she sings. ‘What if we never fell in love ‘hellip; would I know this hurt?’

On the other end of the emotional spectrum, Nettles and Bush wrote ‘Steve Earle,’ which is a tribute of sorts to the country rocker and political activist. Some consider Earle a savior of country music in the ’80s. Sugarland’s song is about his womanizing — Earle had seven wives, and the song’s narrator wishes to be one.

‘Well, I heard Steve Earle had lots of wives / About as many as cats have lives,’ Nettles sings.

The narrator then goes on to describe how Earle wrote a song about all of his women and wrote ‘an even better one’ when they broke up.

‘Steve Earle, Steve Earle, please write a song for me,’ she sings.

The one song that stands out from the mediocre pack is ‘We Run,’ which is about finding that special someone who can help you do things you never thought you could, even if you know it’s not completely right.

‘Old enough and should know better / But doing what you shouldn’t is half the fun / So we run,’ Nettles sings. ‘You may never know how fast you can go / ‘Til someone lifts your feet up off the ground.’

The only thing that could possibly save this album is its musicianship, but even that is lacking. The instrumentals are primarily simple acoustic arrangements with the steel guitar sneaking in every now and then. This works with songs that have good vocals and a moving message — like ‘Stay’ — but none of these songs combine everything together as some of Sugarland’s previous hits.

Nettles and Bush must have set the bar too high with their first two albums, because this album definitely came up short.