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Golden [Deluxe Edition]
Barnes and Noble
Golden [Deluxe Edition]
Current price: $19.99
Barnes and Noble
Golden [Deluxe Edition]
Current price: $19.99
Size: OS
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's heart and soul belong to Nashville, the place where dreams are packaged, polished, and sold. The trio, led equally by vocalists
and
, and rounded out by by jack-of-all-trades instrumentalist
, are designed to appeal to the largest possible audience and, as such, they're smart enough to not mess with a winning formula, choosing only to sweeten it on their fourth album,
. Like the other three (along with their 2012 holiday stopgap
),
is produced by
, a longtime Music City fixture who truly made his reputation producing
, but there's no hint of the rowdiness that punctuated even the
' glossiest work. Instead, this is all shimmering and slick, more of an adult contemporary pop album than a country record. Apart from the intro of "Get to Me," there's nary a hint of twang here, the tempos never escalate -- the sprightliest number is the bouncy, effervescent "Downtown"; the most insistent is the rocking "Better Off Now (That You're Gone)," whose loudness fades once the verse kicks in -- and the whole vibe is irrepressibly friendly, best heard on quietly insistent pieces of pop like "Can't Stand the Rain." So cheerful is
that it seems a little churlish to complain that the songs here aren't grabbers: they're slow burns, designed to sink into the subconscious through repeated plays on radio, in-store sound systems, waiting rooms, and bumper music. And that's fine: it's professional product at its finest, meticulously assembled, polished until it gleams, designed to be nothing more than thoroughly agreeable. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine