Little Big Town

1	Pontiac 3:43
2	Everything Changes 3:44
3	Don't Waste My Time 2:50
4	Still 3:27
5	Never Felt Love 3:46
6	Tryin' 4:03
7	Stay 3:27
8	Somewhere Far Away 4:03
9	A Thousand Years 3:52
10	From This Dream 4:28

Barnes & Noble

For fans of tight, tuneful group harmony, Little Big Town is made to order. This rare coed country quartet comes out of the box with a radio-ready sound, courtesy of talented producer Blake Chancey, but not without a bit of meat on its state-of-the-art pop-country bones. Focusing on the myriad aspects of relationships, the group's original songs are largely upbeat, counseling optimism in trying times. The steadily pulsating love song "Never Felt Love" describes a skeptical fellow who meets his dream girl and comes to believe in the power of love. Believing is the theme of "Tryin'," a power-country tale of a girl leaving home to make it big in Nashville. Six years later, she's still reaching for the brass ring, between shifts at the local greasy spoon, but the message, sung by voices layered one on top of the other in intoxicating fashion, is that "it's about hopin', it's about dreamin', it's about never not believin'." "Stay," a luxurious ballad, recounts the final moments of a breakup, with the woman asking her man to hang around until she gathers strength to move forward -- even in this desperate hour, the Little Big Town women sing in silky-smooth harmony of the certainty that they will recover. Little Big Town's bromides may be a bit too simplistic for some, their production a bit too slick for others, but their message is strong, and their natural skill and well-honed vocal chops bode well for the future of this promising group. David McGee

All Music Guide

Little Big Town is a vocal quartet consisting of two men and two women who sing their songs by mixing up lead vocals and harmonies, such that one may start a song only to have another take the second verse, while some other combination sings the choruses. This, of course, is not typical of country music, nor are the song arrangements, which lean heavily to a folk-rock sound with prominent acoustic guitars and rhythm section, but only touches of fiddle and steel guitar; nor, for that matter, are the songs themselves, most of them written by the group members, which tend toward a pop sensibility with their generalized romantic sentiments. In the inevitable game of describing a new act by its antecedents, one must throw out names like Fleetwood Mac rather than any specifically country artists. Actually, Little Big Town does call to mind certain country acts of the past. They may remind knowledgeable country fans of such late-'80s performers as Foster & Lloyd and Kennedy Rose, duos that earned critical kudos (especially from non-country critics), but struggled to earn a commercial footing and ultimately found greater success behind the scenes as writers. Championed by Monument Records, the same label that changed the parameters of conventional country success with the Dixie Chicks, Little Big Town may succeed by rewriting the Nashville rule book in a similar way. William Ruhlmann