After parting ways with guitarist and songwriter Kristen Hall following their 2004 debut Twice the Speed of Life, Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush went in a more slickly commercial direction on 2006’s Enjoy the Ride, enlisting veteran producer Byron Gallimore to help them reach the top of the country charts. It worked wonders, and now the duo is one of the most popular acts in country music coming into Love on the Inside.
Thankfully, even with Gallimore once again behind the boards, Inside is a calmer, more nuanced affair than Ride, although it’s still resolutely commercial. Nettles and Bush allow their roots in folk and soul music to shine through, writing simple, evocative tunes about love, regret and other basic, everyday concerns. Nettles tones down the exaggerated twang in her voice, which grew distracting on Ride, just enough to smooth things out without losing her distinctive sound, and brings a great deal of feeling to sweet, affecting character studies like “Genevieve” and “Take Me As I Am.”
There are perhaps one or two too many languid ballads, and the energy of lead single and opening track “All I Want to Do” doesn’t sustain throughout the album. But just when you think Nettles and Bush have relinquished too much of their personality to mainstream radio demands, they break out something like “Steve Earle,” a goofy, pedal steel-driven tribute to the alt-country singer, someone who much of the group’s audience has probably never heard of. As long as Sugarland don’t lose sight of those diverse elements of their sound, and continue to expose them to wider audiences, they deserve to get as popular as they want.
The bottom line: ***1/2
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