The Dixie Chicks establish their point of view immediately in the title song “The Long Way Around,” the lead track on their first album since igniting a controversy that grounded country music’s highest flying act. “It’s been two long years since the top of the world came crashing down,” Natalie Maines sings, referring to the national uproar that erupted after she made an offhand comment slamming President Bush in 2003 during the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. While the next line suggests the trio is “getting it back on the road now,” their new album dwells on the bitterness they still carry from the radio and fan backlash they’ve endured. On one level, The Long Way Around more forcefully spells out their reaction to the upheaval than anything they’ve said in interviews. “Monkeys on the barricades are warning us to back away,” Maines seethes in “Easy Silence.” “They form commissions trying to find the next one they can crucify.” Later, in “Farewell to Old Friends,” the Texas trio lash out at the industry insiders who turned their backs on them. Maines sings with a mix of sarcasm and sadness: “We all rode the wave of that crazy parade / Oh where’d you go, what happened to the ones we knew / As long as I’m the shiniest star, oh there you are.” The album’s first five songs all confront career experiences from different angles, and the bitterness drapes a wet, dull blanket across the can’t-stop-us spirit that made the Dixie Chicks such a refreshing presence over the albums they created from 1998 to 2003. The band’s new, lush middle-of-the-road pop sound doesn’t help matters. Producer Rick Rubin, who usually prefers a stark and fierce sound, allows nearly every song to plod along to a mid-tempo pace. The numbers are dense, with swirling harmonies and orchestrations that work in counterpoint to Maines’ singing, which rarely shows any of the rowdy passion or complex emotion that made her one of American music’s most expressive voices. She occasionally shows flashes of her old self, ripping with fiery spite through the hard-rocking “Lubbock or Leave It,” a scorched-earth excoriation of her hometown, where the radio station still bans their records. Elsewhere, Maines soars on “Everybody Knows,” a song about celebrity and living under a microscope, and shows a truly tender ache on “Voice Inside My Head,” a track about a married mother reflecting on giving up a child in her wild youth. Likewise, even when the Chicks break away from their industry troubles, they tend to tackle somber subjects, as in “Silent House,” about walking through an empty home abandoned by a grandparent suffering from Alzheimer’s. For the first time, Maines and her bandmates, sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, have a hand in writing every song on their album. They collaborated with established L.A. pros like Sheryl Crow, Linda Perry, Gary Louris of the Jayhawks, Dan Wilson of Semisonic and Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. As songwriters, the Chicks open a vein and let the bad blood flow. They take dead aim not only at their critics, but at small towns, the country music industry, the cult of celebrity, even former high school friends who got married young and “moved into the same zip codes that their parents lived,” swiping them all with the same black brush. In the past, part of the Chicks’ appeal was how engagingly they addressed both dark and light subjects. Whether singing about spousal abuse, sexual freedom, heartbreak or pursuing their own dreams, they always sounded empowering and in touch with an inner defiance that simultaneously flashed a middle finger and a smile. The Chicks never shied away from truths or controversy; but they didn’t let it weigh them down either. Even when dealing with serious subjects, as in war’s toll in “Travelin’ Soldier” or a troubled relationship with an elder family member in “Top of the World,” they touched hearts with transcendent performances that ultimately uplifted listeners. Rather than catharsis, The Long Way Around seems stuck in a bad-vibe groove that lectures and criticizes rather than breaking through and freeing themselves of the cage others have placed around them. Like a spouse burned by deceit or an employee unfairly fired, the trio don’t seem able to let go of a particular harsh, life-changing episode. But as long as they dwell on it, they can’t get back their old personality—or their joy. Maybe this album will be the exorcism they needed. The Wreckers, a new country duo featuring former teen singer-songwriter sensation Michelle Branch, achieve what the Chicks don’t on their debut Maverick Records album, Stand Still, Look Pretty. They lend a sunny, Southern California pop sheen to the Chicks core sound of blending bluegrass instruments (mandolin, fiddle, Dobro, et. al.) with a pulsing rock rhythm section and electric guitar and organ accents. They also manage to sound angry and spiteful yet engaging, strong and fun on songs that mostly address the difficulties of being beautiful and smart. Branch and partner Jessica Harp, her former backup singer, decided to become a duo after the young star heard her friend was pursuing a country career in Nashville. Writing songs together led to the two uniting their talents and Branch giving up her solo career, which began in at age 17 with the top 2001 hit “Everywhere.” Stand Still, Look Pretty reveals why she felt such excitement. At a time when rock and pop are moving away from singer-songwriters, Branch and Harp embrace country’s rootsy openness to spin songs built on pretty harmonies, memorable melodies and lyrics with plenty of feeling and clever couplets. The songs are filled with the relationship angst of young adults, with Harp’s expressive, husky alto and Branch’s sweet, tough soprano creating an appealing musical blend. “Do you want to runaway together / I would say was your best line ever / Too bad I fell for it,” Branch intones on “The Good Kind.” The songs balance inner strength with personal disappointment, but what makes them work is how freshly the voices and arrangements blend and how catchy they are. Branch toured as an opening act for the Dixie Chicks on their 2002 Fly tour, and she no doubt noticed the musical possibilities of the trio’s sound and how strongly the sold-out crowds responded to tough and tender sentiments presented with an empowering, engaging attitude. It’s a lesson Branch and Harp learned well, and that the Chicks need to recall.
