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(As published in Blender ... )
The Lemon Pipers
Green Tambourine: The Best of the Lemon Pipers
(Buddha)
***
What besides its quintessential ’60s AM title hit makes this admittedly frothy collection more than mere meringue? A dozen trippy baroque sing-alongs that make both “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “MacArthur Park” sound like stripped-down garage anthems by comparison. Yet the “best” label is misleading: Two songs described in the liner notes as being among the band’s shining moments—“Turn Around Take a Look” and “Through With You”—are missing, even though this forty-six-minute disc has room enough for both. Partial consolation comes with the inclusion of both “Shoeshine Boy” and “The Shoemaker,” proof that the Pipers sang about subjects other than rice, blueberries, tangerines and wine.
(As published in Blender ... )
Tim McGraw 
Set This Circus Down
(Curb)
***
Tim McGraw has never decided what he likes about women more—their power to civilize men or their power to drive men wild. On his first release since being named Father of the Year last summer, Mr. Faith Hill declares foursquare for civilization, either by celebrating domesticity or by lamenting its passing; only on the yearningly nostalgic “Telluride” do his desires stray beyond the home. Elsewhere, the material ranges from predictably pleasant to pleasantly predictable. The exception: “Angry All the Time,” in which McGraw embodies a quietly devastated husband so movingly that one gladly overlooks “Things Change,” his rather glib attempt to nominate himself the successor of Hank Sr., Elvis, Waylon, and Willie.
(As published in Blender ... )
Brooks and Dunn 
Steers and Stripes
(Arista Nashville)
From drawled vocals to working-class concerns, the tenth-anniversary album from Brooks and Dunn is unmistakably country, but its prominent drums and loud southern-rock guitars also mark a break with the duo’s honky-tonk roots. B&D are even singing harder nowadays, as if their prime-time slot at last year’s Republican convention woke them up to the larger sociopolitical ramifications of boot-scootin’ boogie. By framing their expanded country dance vision with testosterone hooks and soft-hearted ballads, they all but guarantee increased enrollment on their bandwagon. For older fans, “Lucky Me, Lonely You” is hard Bakersfield honky-tonk to its core, and “Deny, Deny, Deny” is as hilariously pathetic an excuse as any ne’er-do-well husband (or ex-president) ever tried to foist upon the little woman.
The Lemon Pipers
