Send "Sugarland " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Americansongwriter |
 Sugarland is an odd duck. The duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush has never really fit in on Music Row in many ways, yet has had big radio hits, toured with major stars who are much more “country,” and has picked up CMA awards for the past several years. With The Incredible Machine, Sugarland has distanced itself even more from the Nashville mainstream, and whether or not country fans will continue to embrace the evolving Sugarland sound will remain to be seen.Keyboards are featured prominently on this new CD, and this may well be the biggest country album this year that relies so much on keys, courtesy of the Moog synthesizer as played by Brandon Bush, Kristian’s younger brother. Brandon is a former member of Grammy-winning rock band Train, and is now a permanent member of Sugarland’s recording and touring band, as is drummer Travis McNabb, longtime drummer for alternative rockers Better than Ezra. So those two additions alone should indicate that this isn’t exactly gonna sound like a current Music Row album. No fiddles or steel are anywhere to be found. The album opens with “All We Are,” an ode to the world-changing power of youth that finds Nettles immediately blowing the doors off the place against an organ backdrop, and she continues to sing well throughout out the recording. Her sometimes quirky voice and affectations seem downplayed a little here, but when she gets into Nettles mode, she’s as confident as ever with who she is and how she sings. The lead single from the album, the incredibly catchy “Stuck Like Glue,” has one of the most memorable hooks of the year in any genre, like it or not. It’s probably playing in your head right now just from having seen the name of it....full text |
| Nytimes |
| No country act struggles more with its countryness than Sugarland. It isn’t especially equipped for the task. Jennifer Nettles, the lead singer, has a showstopping voice, a slick howl that feels effortless. Kristian Bush, her partner, plays sweet, cheerful guitar. Their brand of country-pop is shiny and overwhelmingly optimistic, filling and simple. Sugarland is a duo, though really only in name: it’s Ms. Nettles’s show, and it’s been an impressive one since its 2004 debut, “Twice the Speed of Life.” But on “The Incredible Machine,” the fourth Sugarland album, Ms. Nettles is in retreat, taking pains to undermine her monster of a voice, perhaps the best in country music today. She softens its punch by pulling away from some syllables on “All We Are.” On “Tonight,” she adopts a breathy, slightly gothic 1980s theatricality. Most peculiar is the reggae patois she slips into on “Every Girl Like Me” and the single “Stuck Like Glue.” This all amounts to an unwelcome unraveling of the Sugarland formula. As a country duo, the members of Sugarland are surefooted. As tweakers of Nashville orthodoxies, they’re goofy and fun, but clumsy. “Stuck Like Glue” opens with a bit of pseudo-beatboxing, though it’s notable more for being irksome than for being novel. “Find the Beat Again” sounds like a No Doubt homage. And there are blatant errors of judgment on this album, particularly the increased vocal presence of Mr. Bush, whose anguished scrape is a heavy anchor pulling down “Stand Up,” “Wide Open,” and the many songs on which he sings harmony at the chorus....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| On The Incredible Machine, Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles has finally stopped affecting that ridiculous caricature of a Southern drawl that has marred many of her otherwise fantastic vocal performances. Ask and you shall receive, right? Unfortunately, that's the full extent of the good news that the duo's fourth album, The Incredible Machine, brings. Though its style alone makes it a sure bet to be hailed as progressive by those who only like country music that doesn't sound a damn thing like country music, and just as sure to be reviled by country music purists, the real problems with the album are with its failures of execution and its inexplicable aesthetic choices. Even the album's packaging is flawed. Nettles and Kristian Bush have claimed that they drew inspiration for the album's imagery from the Steampunk genre of science fiction. If somewhat dated as a point of reference, that at least sounds interesting as a soundbite in an interview, but it suggests a thematic depth the album utterly fails to provide. Moreover, it sounds a whole lot more "artistic" than saying you lifted your cover art and title from a kids' computer game. Mechanical and fantasy images don't figure into the material here other than on the title track, which ultimately presents the whole Steampunk angle as an excuse for Bush and Nettles to play dress-up. And even then, their shallow reading of the genre misses its grittier undertones entirely: It just looks like they sent some costumes from Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd to the drycleaners. The choice of imagery never resolves into a greater aesthetic, which is disappointing, but the problems with styling are far less troubling than The Incredible Machine's actual music. Sugarland have never resembled a traditional country act, but their previous albums at least retained some of the genre's most important signifiers, even as the band considered a broader musical landscape. While I have no interest in vilifying the duo for their aspirations to cross over to a pop audience, The Incredible Machine does stand to alienate at least some portion of their core fanbase, because it isn't a country album. Not even a little bit. Artists should have the creative freedom to make the types of albums they want to make, regardless of genre labels; on Love on the Inside, the duo showcased that they can pull off adult-leaning pop pretty well. That album's excellent cover of the Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town" with Little Big Town and Jake Owen suggested that Sugarland probably had a full pop album in them sooner rather than later. But The Incredible Machine isn't a good pop album by any stretch of the imagination....full text |
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