Life As We Know It (4 Star, 2013)
Lonestar
Reviewed by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.
Lonestar has clearly found a formula for its music that reaches mainstream country and pop music fans, and they build on that arena-country sound on this album. There's nothing subtle about any of these songs; it's either "pull off your shirts and rub a little sun screen on/pull out and pop the top on a cold one and have a good time/we rock and roll and the fun never stops" on Party All Day, or the name-checking rap of the break-up song, How Can She Be Everywhere: "2 am Vegas Strip, Big and Rich there she is/Disneyworld, Taj Mahal, it's a small world after all/I see here in the strangest places/Fenway Park to Talledega." I Miss When - if you close your eyes while listening you'll swear you're hearing Mark Wills 19 Somethin' - celebrates the virtues of the stereotypical small-town country life in music that clearly sounds more like Lynyrd Skynyrd than Alabama. On the anthemic Oh Yeah, which closes the album, Lonestar celebrates 20 years by thanking fans - "We'll never forget cause we know it's true/we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you" - and by acknowledging that they've found their formula and will continue to follow it - "Before we leave tonight to rock another town/come on and sing it loud."
Lonestar's new album is all about singing it loud, with one song barely distinguishable from another musically or thematically. Their fans will be ecstatic - as will any fans of pop country best suited for arenas - but as they sing in a line from I Miss When, this noise "don't sound like music at all."
CDs by Lonestar
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